Career Planning: Choose Your Path

Required Course

Why This Course?

SLS 1122 – Managing Your Success

This course is designed to prepare students for college courses and professional settings. Students are introduced to college resources, academic expectations, career/academic planning, study skills, time/money management, interpersonal skills, and basic technology skills.

Being prepared for academic and professional settings is necessary for all careers:

Accountant/Business Owners – When working with customers and/or clients, professionalism, and proper demeanor is what will gain their trust and respect.

Educators – As a teacher you must maintain a professional identity, be organized and manage your time wisely to be as resourceful as you can be for your students.

Scientists – Although scientists are usually in labs and may or may not interact with others as much as other professions, you are still required to meet deadlines and be organized in order to meet the requirements of your position as a professional.

Legal Professionals – As someone who works with clients and represents them, you must maintain a professional demeanor and be punctual in order to gain the clients' trust.

Medical Professionals – You must always maintain a professional relationship with patients and be able to see a certain number of patients as scheduled without running behind. 

Mechanics – As someone who provides a service that requires problem solving you must maintain professionalism and be able to provide the appropriate service in a timely manner.

Architects/Engineers – Completing designs and projects in a timely manner is crucial and maintaining professionalism to sell or market your design is key to being successful in this field.

Chefs – Delivering food in a timely manner with good presentation is always appreciated by customers. Customers always appreciate chefs who provide service with professionalism.

Information Technology – Providing solutions in a timely manner is key in this field because Technology is something that is needed for things to operate smoothly, therefore prompt solutions are necessary.

Liberal Arts – A successful artist will always have respect for their public presentation and professionalism from their audience.

Required Course

Why This Course?

ENC 1101 – Introduction to Composition

This course is designed to promote critical thinking and reading skills that encourage a higher level of comprehension and analysis while writing.

Critical thinking and reading skills are necessary for many different careers including:

Accountant/Business Owners – Analyze profits, financial statements and think critically about potential risks.

Educators – Think critically about how to develop effective lesson plans for each student and their needs. Analyze how effective their assignments for student learning. 

Scientists – Think critically and analyze through problem-based learning when conducting experiments.

Legal Professionals – Think critically and analyze evidence and legal documents.

Medical Professionals – Think critically and analyze potential patient diagnosis and suggest appropriate treatment.

Mechanics – Analyzing potential mechanical defects and thinking about appropriate solutions for repair.

Architects/Engineers – Think critically about appropriate designs and analyzing strengths and weaknesses.

Chefs – Think critically on the spot for best alternatives in their kitchen when they face a problem.

Information Technology – Assess and analyze technological problems and think critically about the solutions and repair needed.

Liberal Arts – As an artist you learn to delve into the whats, whys, and hows of the world rather than taking everything presented to you at face value.

Required Course

Why This Course?

SPC 2608 – Oral Communication

This course helps develop the general education outcomes of critical/creative thinking, communication, cultural literacy, and information and technical literacy.

It is important to have appropriate oral communication skills for various careers including:

Accountant/Business Owners – In the business field, it is important learn to communicate in various ways that will attract customers and clients to gain their trust, whether it is marketing or just communicating information about financial information.

Educators – As teachers, communication is a crucial part of a student's experience in the class. This includes communication a lesson plan, deadlines, or goals. Being more interactive and enthusiastic can help attract students' attention more.

Scientists – Scientists are mostly communicating factual information based on research. This is still a form of communication and it requires you to share information in a convincing and effective manner.

Legal Professionals – Legal professionals have various way they will need to communicate. They will need to communicate professionally with their clients, and they will be required to be more persuasive if they are in court.

Medical Professionals – Communication medical information to patients does not come naturally. It requires controlling emotions and choosing the correct words to convey medical information to patients in a way that they can understand. 

Mechanics – Being able to communicate solution for a mechanical customer in way that they understand is important for customer satisfaction.

Architects/Engineers – Being able to communicate and present designs and plans to a target audience is crucial to be successful in this field. It requires you to be able to use persuasive techniques when communicating.

Chefs – The way an item on a menu is presented to customers can really influence their decision about what they want to eat, whether it is verbal or something that is written on a menu.

Information Technology – IT fields require communication that must be both professional and instructional. Sometimes you may need to instruct students or other employees on how to troubleshoot and fix technology problems.

Liberal Arts – Artists may host exhibitions or may be interviewed about their work. In this situation they are required to present their work and this may be in the form of persuasion, informative, or simply evaluative (to leave it open to audience interpretation).

Required Course

Why This Course?

ENC 1102 – Writing with Research

This course is designed to promote critical thinking and reading skills with research, synthesis, and argument.

Using research to think critically and make sound decisions and arguments is necessary for many careers including:

Accountant/Business Owners – Making claims and decisions using valid evidence and reasoning is important for businesses to gain trust from their clients.

Educators – Teachers must be able to educate students with accuracy and be able to answer students' questions with accurate information.

Scientists – Any findings that scientists come up with must be a result of multiple studies in order for it to be considered valid.

Legal Professionals – Legal professionals are required to research and learn appropriate laws that are relevant to make claims that can win a case.

Medical Professionals – Doctors and nurses must be able to give the reason behind each diagnosis, which is something they attain by staying up to date with current medial knowledge.

Chefs – Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems

Mechanics – Mechanics must stay up to date with the most recent models to troubleshoot problems and communicate appropriate solutions to customers.

Architects/Engineers –Architects must go through a process of analyzing their designs/ inventions, synthesizing its benefits and drawbacks to evaluate and communicate its worth.

Information Technology – Staying up to date with new software and technology and being able to synthesize and evaluate the problem is important to troubleshoot and communicate a solution to clients.

Liberal Arts – Art represents a significant period of time and/or portrays a significant message to its audience. This requires artists to think critically when creating or composing their work to get a particular message across to their audience.