Ep. 94 - Find the Right Major and Explore Careers with FOCUS 2!

Are you in the right major? Want an easy way to explore majors and career options? In Ep. 94, Matt Markin chats with Career Counselors/Advisors Sarai Maldonado and Lauren Williams from the Career Center about FOCUS 2, a reliable, intuitive career and education decision-making model to help you select a major, explore occupations, make informed career decisions, and take action in your career development.

Take the FOCUS 2 assessments! Visit the Career Center website!

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome to the CSUSB Advising Podcast. This is Matt Markin from the ASUA Academic Advising office. And on today's episode, we're learning more about the career center and a new tool that the Career Center is using to help with your interest, major exploration and career planning and more, and that's something called Focus2. So let's welcome to the podcast our career counselor and advisor Sarai Maldonado, who has been a previous guest on the podcast, and also career counselor and advisor Lauren Williams, first time guest on the pod. Sarai and Lauren, welcome.

Lauren Williams  
Thank you for having us.

Matt Markin  
absolutely. So before we start talking about all things Career Center, let's learn more about both of you. So whoever wants to start tell us about yourself.

Lauren Williams  
I'll go first. So like Matt said, my name is Lauren, and I'm one of the counselors from the Career Center, and I've been here at San Bernardino campus for about 16 months now. So maybe I'm brand new to the campus, but not brand new to career. I actually came from Cal State LA's campus, from their career center, and also taught a few career and life planning classes at Chaffey college for a few years. So I've been maybe in the career spectrum for about a little over six years now as background, but briefly before, I worked in corporate life for about 10 years, did a lot of production management as well as production artistry. But now I'm here as a counselor.

Sarai Maldonado  
Hi, thank you, Matt. Thank you, Lauren. I'm Sarai, and I've been here with Cal State San Bernardino for a little bit over 11 years now, and as a career counselor here at the Career Center. I've had the opportunity to work in many programs and also work with academic advising to support our students success. And one of the things that I enjoy is helping our students find experiential learning opportunities, volunteer opportunities, internship opportunities, and of course, for our students to land that dream career.

Matt Markin  
And I think that leads perfectly into this question, and why is it important for students to start career exploration, maybe on their first day, or even if a student is now a continuing student. Why should they be now starting to try to look more into career exploration and maybe what tools do you recommend to help students get started?

Sarai Maldonado  
Well, I do want to say that we encourage our students to start their career exploration as soon as they step on campus. So that means, during orientation, during the time that they're in class, that also consider career development simultaneously. So again, as soon as you step up to campus, is the first day that you start your career development. That's what we encourage all students, they come to us.

Lauren Williams  
Yeah, and maybe to build on top of that too, because I feel like your exploration doesn't start when you graduate, right? It starts like Sarai you said, the first day that you literally are a student on this campus. So it's really maybe about maximizing your time here and, of course, meal, attending classes, priority, right? Definitely, when we're thinking about that. But in tandem with our professional development, we also want to maybe in a way intentionally work upon that right, or build upon that same way that we're taking our classes, completing our assignments right, moving on to the next semester, if you will. So maybe in a digestible way, because there's lots of different career maybe theories out there, but one that I really like to go with is called the intelligent career approach. And this was created back in the actual in the 1990s by Australian researchers, no less so in a different country, really talking about the means to maximize, right your approach to career. So that's why they dubbed it the intelligent career approach, because everyone, everyone, everybody has three career capitals that you necessarily, maybe don't think about or are aware of. And it's really, maybe really instruct, because, to me, is an easier, digestible way to really capitalize and maximize your time. What are those capitals? Really quick, and the first one really is knowing your why, right? What is your purpose? What is your connection, your motivation towards this line of work, or towards this cause? So you can feel fulfilled, right? And very maybe satisfied work life, satisfaction in your career, right? You're not dreading going to work when you wake up in the morning, right? We nobody really wants to feel that way. And that's the first capital, right. Second one is the how. So when we think about career, we also think about skills, right? So of course, you are building your expertise, your knowledge in the classroom, but you're also building upon your skill sets. So you're also thinking about, what are my skills, and what can I perform to do? Because, in a way, that's what we're doing in work. We are performing right along with our expertise. And then the last but not least, is the whom. So I hate to use this cliche, but there's some maybe truth or merit to it. It's not what you know, but who you know, and really it's because the who can provide you access right to opportunities, whether it's an internship, right? We all love those, or maybe even a job, right? Or give you that recommendation, that referral. So there's a lot of power in your networks, right? And you can literally use this campus to build upon those networks, really, starting with your your classmates, your professors, the faculty staff, all of us on campus are your network, so you can utilize us too as well. So really, your first day is think of it this way. Think of it of your three capitals, right? Career capitals, you're knowing why, whom and how, and really, when you think about those, the campus will really, or campus resources really fall into all of those capitals for you.

Matt Markin  
And there's definitely a lot of campus resources and a lot of things that your Career Center offers, and one of them is something new Focus2. So I'm hoping that you can tell us more, maybe in general terms, what is focus two, and why should students utilize it? What are the benefits?

Lauren Williams  
Yeah, so thank you for pointing it out, because I feel like Focus2 really falls into the knowing why portion of it. And honestly, I have a definition of it. I really like to read and then really give more meaning making to it. So the definition of Focus2, right to give a clear, general understanding of it. It's an assessment, not a test, an assessment and exploration platform that really helps students to guide them to an intuitive and reliable kind of career decision making model that really helps you to select not just your major, right, if you're maybe you're undecided or even unsure if the right major is for you right, or your current major is the right one for you, right? And also to explore different types of occupations. So really, is to help you make informed decisions, right? We're not just picking something because, you know, we necessarily saw it on TV, and we're like, Okay, I think that's great. However connect to it. Why do you think it's great, right? Why do you think you might be interested in I've had so many students talk about CSI, so literally from the show, right? So what makes you interested in CSI? Why are you connecting it in this way? And you're really understanding that. Why? So really, focus two is really to understand and help you reflect upon your own, maybe skills that are there and awareness too. So really, that exploration factor of the self and as well as what's out there, as far as careers and majors.

Sarai Maldonado  
I want to echo everything you said, Lauren, I know Focus2 is a new platform for myself. So thank you for sharing that, Lauren. I do want to add that Focus2, as Lauren mentioned, is a tool for our students to actually explore more of themselves on their own. But it also it's an additive for for that to come with you, when you come and meet with us, you already ahead of, I want to say, ahead of the curve in terms of where you're at, in terms of skills, what occupation you're more interested in. It helps us help you find that internship or job that is aligned within your field of study, that is aligned with your purpose, that is aligned with the meaningful work that you want to do. I want to add one thing that is very important to include in this chat, and it has to do with the level of employee engagement in the workforce. The Gallup we're speaking of strengths here with Gallup and Semaphore, a business company they would they did a survey on the global life work balance, and they found that globally, 15% of employees are actively disengaged. And then they went ahead and shared, how does the US compares to the globally, right? So we are 33% actively engaged. Between 77% of employees are not fully engaged with their organization, which means that growth and resilience for the organization, if you're if this employee is disengaged, it decreases. If the employee is engaged, then growth, productivity and resilience for both the employee and the organizations increase. So for me, it's important for our students to understand and like you said, Lauren, to make informed based decisions on where do you want to make that impact? Because we want you to increase that engaged percentage in the US. So I just wanted to add that piece.

Matt Markin  
Oh, awesome. And with Focus2, you know, and we'll include the login information in the show notes. But let's say a student takes. Is Focus2 what should they be doing after they complete it? You know, are they meeting with a career advisor, the meeting with with me in academic advising? Are they doing both? Can you shine some light on that, and maybe a situation, an example of when a student would take Focus2?

Lauren Williams  
Of course. So maybe taking focus to the natural length of it won't take that long. Like the there's a series of five assessments, and each assessment promises not long will take you maybe five to 10. I say 10 minutes at the most is if you're, like, really thinking long and hard about a certain question or something. But really at most five minutes. So five times five, 25 minutes to like complete all five. But honestly, you can complete like three and see results, or you can even complete one and see results. So these five assessments, the first one is called work interest profile. Then you have your skills assessment, values assessment, leisure assessment, and even personality. The leisure one is kind of like, why leisure? But there are some hobbies that you may be doing that literally translate to a career. Like I had a student who, who was, I love to read, but what can I do as a career for just reading and obtaining information? I'm like, why not? You know, archiver, maybe Library Information Sciences. There's a plethora of books in a library, right? And she was like, huh, didn't really think about that. So that's why I like the hobbies or the leisure part in there. But really, these five assessments, again, when you take them, maybe thinking about a common theme among them is that you will get, again, a list of like occupations as well as majors that are based upon your results. So again, like I was saying, it was an assessment not to like Miss clear with the magic ball predicting your future, but really helping to understand what's already there, right? That's what assessments do. They bring out that reflection of what you're already practicing and maybe what interests you already have. So just maybe making that a way for students to articulate that and express that to others too, as well. So while they're taking it right, they can get immediate results, right? So they're kind of understanding the immediate benefits when it comes from taking the the assessments plural, right? Because on one more thing I didn't mention before, maybe even talking about, what should they do afterwards, is is really they can get even informatics or information, I should say really about a said career. So it can be, like, salary, the description, like, as far as task responsibilities, where are these positions located? And then even best the education, as well as training possibly involved, like, maybe additional certifications that might be required, right? So it's really just a hub of information as well as a reflection tool to help, again, understand what's there. So when you do, maybe complete it, and you're looking to see what to do afterwards, right? I think there's merit in meeting with both, and it just maybe depends on the type of situation, I think, because, again, everyone's different when we or when we, I guess, arrive and come to the table with but I feel like, after completing the five assessments, you can really, I would say, even meeting with a career advisor, you can get an understanding, first, of further understanding and further digesting. Because yes, the descriptions and focus two are there, but the exploration shouldn't stop there. You can really meet with the career advisor to understand, to talk and work things through, right especially if you have questions more afterwards. But I would think maybe in a certain situation, actually, one that I'm actually thinking of right now is if a student is perhaps in this one situation, a student was undecided about their current major that they were in. So I advised her to take focus two, which she did, and she met back with me to talk about her results. And as we were talking it through, she decided to change her major. She was like, I'm feeling maybe sociology is really my major. I'm like, That is great. Now let's meet with the academic advisor to talk about more about the major itself, the classes associated with it, and get that planned into your schedule, and maybe just to see how it looks like with your two years that you are coming from a different university, right? So in that way, I feel like in that maybe particular situation, I think it's great that the student can utilize both departments.

Sarai Maldonado  
That's great. I want to echo everything you said, Lauren, and I'll just go ahead and add that we always encourage our students to stay connected with their academic advisor who helps them with their class schedule and their graduation time, as well as with the career advisors with us, because we are the ones who are going to also help you prepare that internship or that job that you aspire and so yes, both are equally important, and I always encourage students at least stay in touch with academic advisor and a career advisor once a month just to. Check, check the pulse of your career development, your career readiness, and how your class courses are going, so that you can meet your graduation goal and be ready for the workforce.

Lauren Williams  
I like what you said about keep on track for the at least the professional development, because it's not maybe quite the same as putting it in your pause report, right? So yes, please check in back with us consistently. 

Matt Markin  
So, what I'm hearing from both of you like Focus2...free resource for the student, easily accessible, and they can log in and take it, and they can take the assessments. Should not take too long to do it, maybe at most, 10 minutes an assessment, but probably for majority, five minutes an assessment, 25 minutes, and they're done with all of them, but they'll have easy access right then and thereafter. They take the assessments with a lot of information. They can take the assessment wherever they want. They don't have to do it in the office. They could take it at at home, wherever they're at. And they can also meet with you all, and then maybe also meet with advising. So kind of be a nice handoff of sorts. So that sounds really, really great, but now I'm thinking like, well, focusing has all this great information, and yes, you're saying to meet with you, will it eventually replace career advising, or is it best? And also, you know, and I know it's like a fun little question there, but ultimately, I think, should a student, meet with your office and meet with a career advisor before they take focus to you. Or should they take Focus2 and then follow up with you all? 

Sarai Maldonado  
I want to say that it's up to the students where they're at. We always like to meet students where they're at. We always take the holistic and strengths approach. So if we meet with the student if they want to stop by, and they're still very confused, they cannot find an appointment, and they're like, Okay, I need to know now. I think it's best that they just go to Focus2, take those modules learn a little bit about their skills and personality. So when they meet with us, they come in equipped with a little bit more knowing about themselves. And again, it all depends on where the student is at. Perhaps the students already come to a drop in, and we recommend for them to take focus too. That's the other way that our students are getting focused to access because we recognize, hey, you know what I think focus to will do well for you, because you can learn about your skills, you can learn about your personality, and then ultimately focus to provide you with what you can potentially go for. But it really depends on the students where they're at. Lauren, do you want to add something else? 

Lauren Williams  
I my first thought is, AI does not replace human interaction and expertise, for sure, right? Because, well, first humans kind of built that platform anyway, right? And that platforms takes a lot from career theories, which, again, were developed by humans. So I feel like the conversation piece is definitely something that, of course, you can have with your counselor, right? Career Counselor, when you're talking about your results from it. But I also like in considering maybe meeting before or after, I agree with said, I kind of like meeting where the students are at with that, because I feel like there are maybe goodness in both, in a way, right? If you meet before, you can get a little bit more of a preliminary, a little bit like we're doing this podcast, preliminary view kind of expectations of it as well, even though you can still log on yourself, self guided, and still have a clear understanding of what focus two is, but again, right? It doesn't place a human being there and adding in a lot of great information about what Focus2 does for you. So that's like before, right? And then maybe afterwards, right? It says, really helping to make meaning of the results that you have already and maybe even some thoughts that you already had, bringing into the meeting. Maybe sometimes I've met with students who didn't like the results, they're like, oh, I don't agree with it, or I can't. I can't connect to that. And that's fine, too, because at the end of the day, we are our own career navigators. We make decisions upon ourselves and what our wants are, and, of course, needs. But again, it's a really helpful guiding tool right to just kind of discover what's already there, and then you can make those informed decisions whether of what I should say that you would like to pursue.

Matt Markin  
And where can students find more information about the Career Center?

Lauren Williams  
Yeah. So we are located in SMSU South. And we are on the first floor, in room 112.

Sarai Maldonado  
I wanted to add follow us on Instagram. We normally play some new tools, new events. Stay in touch with us so that you can also know what's what events we're creating for our student population.

Lauren Williams  
Absolutely, and we're also on LinkedIn. We just have a profile on LinkedIn now.

Matt Markin  
Well, a lot of great information. Hopefully students take advantage of checking out the Career Center throughout their time at CSUSB and not waiting until the last semester before they graduate, and hopefully a lot of our new Yoties will take advantage also taking the Focus2 assessments, but Sarai and Lauren. Thank you so much for sharing all this information.