Ahead to Sophomore Year
Freshman
Career Planning Checklist
¨
Contact
the Office of Career Services to familiarize yourself with the services and
resources available: visit a counselor, receive a tour, checkout www.umt.edu/career
or browse through the Career Resource Library. Any questions regarding a major,
part-time job or career can be answered through a walk-in or scheduled
appointment with a career counselor.
¨
Start a personal individual file that includes career-planning materials,
for example: activities, references, letters of recommendation, names of people
to contact, etc.
¨
Do some
career exploration:
¨
Discover your values, interests, personality traits, abilities, aptitude,
and lifestyle preferences. Various career assessments are available through the
Office of Career Services.
¨
Identify possible majors and occupations that relate to your values,
interests, personality traits, abilities, aptitudes, academic training, past
employment, life experiences and lifestyle preferences.
¨
Attend
the UM Majors Fair and speak to representatives from academic departments
directly about the majors you are interested in. Obtain information and investigate what classes each major
involves and the potential career paths they can lead to.
Detailed course information can be found in The University of Montana
Catalogue.
¨
Participate
in the Ask-an-Alum Career Mentoring Program. Alumni are very willing to share
information about the steps they took as students and their level of
involvement. An informational interview is the best way to find out answers to
the specific questions about particular areas of interest, majors and careers.
¨
Take electives, courses outside your area of interest, to help explore
overlooked options.
¨
Visit ASUM or Office of Student Involvement in the UC to find out which
clubs and organizations to join and help build a broad background of college
experiences, including meeting new people. Explore community service and
volunteer opportunities as well.
¨
Attend or volunteer to help at the Big Sky Career Fair or Educators’
Career Fair. Contact the Office of Career Services or visit the web site at www.umt.edu/career
for more information.
¨
Make an effort to get to know and utilize counselors, advisors, faculty
and administration. They are valuable sources of information and in the future
can serve as professional references.
¨
Use the
on-line student employee web site at www.umt.edu/studentjobs
to check out part-time, summer and volunteer job opportunities to find a good
job that will give you meaningful, useful experience while meeting your
financial needs to help pay for college. The
Student Employment website will also give you information about upcoming student
job fairs.
