Some students start college with such savvy parents and strong connections that landing well after graduation is all but guaranteed. For their less-advantaged classmates, translating a new degree into a solid career can be a challenge.
Mary McLean Evans noticed that disparity among young alumni of Hamilton College, where she is assistant vice president and executive director of the career center. The difference was most acute, she says, for students who hadn’t plotted a course during college and were scrambling for a job as graduation drew near.
Hamilton already supports low-income students with need-blind admissions and need-based aid (the college eliminated merit scholarships several years ago). But there’s more to the college experience than paying the bill. Low-income students may get in the door, says Monica Inzer, dean of admission and financial aid. But, she wonders, “can we ensure these students have an equal experience, too?”
To that end, Hamilton’s admissions and career offices started a pilot program in the fall: First Year Forward. The admissions staff invited freshmen to participate in the voluntary program, selecting them based on significant financial need, as well as their potential. The process gave preference to first-generation college students and those not already supported by another organization.
This academic year, 33 participants have gone to monthly meetings and worked with career counselors one on one. The freshmen have explored their interests and skills, learned to craft résumés, set up informational interviews, and sought out summer internships or job-shadowing opportunities, for which the program will provide a $2,000 stipend. (Hamilton already offers support for unpaid internships to all students, but they can each use it only once, and the college doesn’t want these freshmen to exhaust their eligibility.)
Hunter Dansin plans to use the First Year Forward stipend for two internships this summer, at an agricultural nonprofit and in a state senator’s office. Mr. Dansin, who grew up near Albany, landed both positions through networking, a skill he learned in the program. Before that, he didn’t know where to begin. “I wouldn’t have done any of this,” he says, “and I probably wouldn’t have thought about it.”
Transferable Skills
Jeanette Z. Parra is one of a handful of participants still trying to find a summer opportunity. She is hoping to return home to San Antonio, but the Hamilton alumni network is smaller there, and she isn’t back yet to interview in person. So the program’s organizers are helping Ms. Parra think through options and will keep advising her even after she heads home. “Although I’m in a rough spot,” she says, “I don’t feel unconfident.”
Ms. Parra’s parents are both Mexican immigrants; her father works in construction, and her mother stays at home. Many of her classmates, she knows, have the advantage of “parents with connections and other people who can help them.” The skills she has picked up in the program, Ms. Parra says, help bridge that gap.
With any luck, the challenge of finding an internship now will leave Ms. Parra better equipped to land a permanent job later. As Ms. Evans explains it, the goal of First Year Forward is “leveling the playing field by engaging with students early.”
That doesn’t mean they have to decide on a career as freshmen. “We don’t want them to all know what they want to do now,” says Janine Oliver, coordinator of First Year Forward and assistant director of the career center. Whereas students often think their major will be the key to professional success, she says, the program, reflecting the philosophy of the career center, focuses instead on developing transferable skills.
Of course, some students make up their minds fast: Milinda C. Ajawara has already set her sights on a specific career. Ms. Ajawara, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who work as an EMT and a nurse, started college planning to become a doctor. But in conversations with Hamilton’s career counselors, she realized she didn’t want to go to medical school, and is particularly interested in patient care.
So Ms. Ajawara started researching other health-care jobs and found that of a nurse practitioner particularly appealing. Through First Year Forward, she had an informational interview with an alumna who works as a nurse practitioner in a women’s health clinic. And this summer, Ms. Ajawara will intern at a nonprofit dedicated to preventing child abuse.
In addition to opening up a possible career path, the program has taught her how to contact an employer she’s interested in and when to follow up. “Little tricks,” Ms. Ajawara says, “not everyone in my class year knows.”
Hamilton hopes to keep giving students a similar edge. For next fall’s incoming class, Ms. Inzer and Ms. Evans are working to formalize First Year Forward. With a background in development, Ms. Evans has raised most of the money needed to cover this year’s stipends. In the future, she hopes the program will be supported by an endowment. Hamilton’s donors already embrace its need-blind commitment, so perhaps they will want to promote this kind of parity, too.
