A career development course offered at Northern Kentucky University helps guide students on their career path.

“This is a class that was developed to help students learn the career development process and to go through the career development process,” Betsy Jennings, director of the Career Development Center, said. The process includes: career planning, job market information and job search. The career development class is the ideal class for undeclared students or declared students who want to learn more about career options. The class begins with getting to know yourself and participating in self-assessments. The self-assessments help to tell a person about their interests, skills, values and personality.

“This class makes you think very hard about your strengths and values and then works on tying in a job to fit those,” Kristy Eversole, sophomore, industrial labor relations major, said. “This is something that is usually overlooked when searching for a major/career, and is probably a big reason why people are so dissatisfied in their jobs.”

The class was developed about 20 years ago and is offered every semester. It is a two credit course and lasts for only 10 weeks.

“This is not a typical class you would take at Northern,” Eversole said. “Instead of focusing on facts about history, math or science, you are focusing on yourself.”

The class teaches how to search for a job, how to develop a resume and how to be successful in an interview. Students are required to purchase a book called “Coming Alive from Nine to Five,” written by Betty Neville Michelozzi.

Undeclared freshman Erin Aviles has narrowed her career choice down to two with the help of the career development course.

“I am still thinking about going into education, but then I like to work with computers,” she said. “So I’m in the middle of deciding that and they are really helping me think it over.”

The career development course can be useful to all students, even those who think they know exactly what career path they want to follow. “The objective is not to find the perfect job when you finish this course,” Jennings said. “Every semester there have been some students who have been able to really figure it out.”

———————————————– For more job-search advice, visit The Job Expo section of The Northerner Online. To meet many Tristate employers, attend Northern Kentucky University’s Job Expo, Tuesday, April 9 in Regents Hall.