Career Services in the Modern University

Sam from RISD Careers recent rebrand.

Today most university career services (or at least the ones I have been introduced to) are pretty marginal in their offerings of student development, holistic career guidance, and their overall ability to connect students with mutually interested organizations beyond the surface network or market leaders.

At RISD this is extremely apparent. Last week I had the opportunity to meet with Sheila Curran, an outside consultant RISD has hired to analyze and provide recommendations for our Career Services Office. Our meeting generated many thoughts on the subject of career services.

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Moral Intelligence & The Window of Opportunity

Today in the strategic planning meeting, John Maeda (RISD’s President), came and gave a compelling presentation regarding RISD’s place in the modern world. While we also had the opportunity to work in smaller breakout groups on more specific issues (my group was given “Permeability”) I will save that conversation for a later date, after more substance has been generated around those ideas within our smaller group.

As we, the Core Group within RISD’s Strategic Plan, continue to frame our top level questions, one of the integral factors we have continued to return to is how does RISD assert a stronger leadership role in facing the challenges of modern society and an evolving student body. John, who’s described his job as “talking about RISD and spreading the idea of RISD’s value” beyond the art and design world, spoke about his experiences at the World Economic Forum and other major leadership gatherings – citing that people are curious and excited to be involved with RISD all over the world.

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