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Exploring Meaning, Purpose, and Calling with the Millennial Generation Elizabeth Thompson Assistant Director, Career Center Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Dead Poets Society Legend of Bagger Vance Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Plans Attributes of SCU and our students Accompanying students with vocation discernment Let Your Life Speak classes and the power of stories Applications to other schools Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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SCU Attributes 8,700 students; 5,200 undergraduate students 53% female, 47% male 37% students of color 58% from California 42% representing 37 states, 16 countries Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Millennial Students Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter People are increasingly creeped out by tranquility; everywhere you look, people are glued to their cell phones, and it has become harder and harder to just sit in silence for a few minutes without feeling the urge to check your phone, send a quick message, or search through your phone mindlessly until the period of waiting is over. Havent we all had the experience of waiting for a friend or a class to start, when we pull out our cell phone and start messaging someone, simply because it feels awkward just sitting there?...Cell phones have bred a culture where it is simply uncomfortable to sit alone without being (or even looking) busy. SCU Student Blog, The Technological Citizen http://thetechnologicalcitizen.com

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Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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distracted from distraction by distraction T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, 1935 Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Todays students are grappling with the more philosophical questions. What is my lifes purpose? What can I do to serve the greater good? What is my personal calling? In secular and non-secular institutions across the country, career practitioners are seeing students who want to discuss the deeper questions of career exploration and decision making. Pamela Braun, Employers are Looking for Students Who Reflect on Lifes Bigger Questions. Campus Career Counselor, March 2005 Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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What are SCU Students Asking? Seeking meaningful work What am I going to do when I graduate that I love to do and where I am making a difference? How do I find my passion in my life? How will I know if I have found the path meant for me? How can I tell? Ability to make a living Can I balance a family, a checkbook, and a life dedicated to service? How do people combine what they love with a job/career they enjoy and still make a living? Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Work life balance Is it possible to achieve work/life balance after graduation? Family expectations How do I balance my familys expectations for me with my own interests? What are SCU Students Asking? Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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What are SCU recent alumni asking? Most common issues I hate this job! This doesnt give me joy. -I want a job, Ill take any job, I need it now. The world doesnt want/need me to do what I want/need to do. Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Vocation The place where your deep gladness and the worlds deep hunger meet." Frederich Buechner Wishful Thinking: A Seekers ABC Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Three Key Questions What brings you joy? Are you good at these things? Does anybody need you to do these things? Michael Himes, Boston College Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Six Components of a Meaningful Life Journey Reflection Authenticity Interconnection Serendipity Self trust Exploration Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter Career Center/Campus Ministry Collaboration

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Let Your Life Speak classes 2-unit, elective, Career Center courses Sophomore, juniors, and seniors 15-20 students in each class Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Course Goals Develop greater self-awareness through engagement with readings, assignments, and speakers to aid you in making academic and work decisions Deepen your understanding of vocation and the application to your life Identify majors and careers through a variety of resources and methods Develop the skills necessary to successfully conduct an internship or job search, including the ability to articulate your story for purposes of networking, resume writing, and interviewing Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Course Outcomes I have a greater sense of myself (interests, strengths, values) 100% I understand the meaning of vocation 100% I am aware of my personal vocation95% I know what resources are available to explore majors and/or careers100% I am close to making academic and/or work decisions100% I understand how to complete the various components of the job search, including networking, writing a resume, job search strategies, and interviewing100% Strongly Agree/Agree Let Your Life Speak: Assessing a Program to Explore Meaning, Purpose, and Calling with College Students, Journal of Employment Counseling, March 2010 Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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The power [of mentors] is in their capacity to awaken a truth within us. [They] can awaken a sense of self and yield clues to who we are. Parker Palmer Educator & Writer The Courage To Teach Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Power of Stories For Students Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter - Rich with meaning - Memorable - Allow students to take away what they need - Stir inside what calls for further attention

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Power of Stories Authentic teaching and learning requires a live encounter with the unexpected, an element of suspense and surprise, an evocation of that which we did not know until it happened. If these elements are not present, we may be training or indoctrinating students, but we are not educating them. In any arena of action rearing children, counseling people, repairing machines, writing books right action depends on yielding our images of particular outcomes to the organic realities of ourselves, the other, and the adventure of action itself. Parker Palmer Educator & Writer The Courage to Teach Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter For Staff

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Power of Stories For alumni Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter The comments of the students brought tears to my eyes. I do not think about who I am or what I do, and so it was both surprising and moving to see how the students perceived my life and work. The unfolding each year of a differently nuanced conversation with the students about the role of social justice in my life gives new insights which are both enriching and meaningful to me. I also took away from the students in the class a strong surge of inspiration and the knowledge that the world will be a better place because of them.

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Modeling the Journey Through Stories Reflection Authenticity Interconnection Serendipity Self-trust Exploration Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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My Story: Developing Authenticity in the Workplace Consider times you felt most yourself. What was the situation? What allowed you to be most yourself? What qualities and characteristics were brought out in you? Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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My Story: Developing Authenticity in the Workplace Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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My Story: Teaching Points Growth happens when we take risks and enter uncomfortable territory There is power and freedom in trusting and embracing our unique gifts v. trying to emulate someone else Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Tell Your Story Identify 1 question on handout you would like to address Identify specific, concrete, personal example Identify teaching points Share your story with your partner, 3-4 minutes Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Questions. Reflection. Discussion. Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Using Alumni Stories on Your Campus Let Your Life Speak classes Arts & Science Career Celebration Alumni Panels Website Alumni Shadowing Program Other Be creative! Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter

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Letters to A Young Poet I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Dont search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer Rainer Rilke Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter