When it comes to employability, the BA has come under a lot of undeserved criticism. Our BA students gain extraordinary knowledge and skills. The challenge may be that students don’t know how to best market their degrees. Why a BA? And how do we help our talented BA students translate their degrees into careers? This is the wicked problem our strategic impact group began with.
Our group was composed of a diversity of expertise and viewpoints. On this journey we learned much about each other and our university. There was immediate agreement that we wanted to work on something that would be of service directly to students. We decided to focus our project by creating an online employment skills course that could become a mandatory part of a BA degree at Carleton. Our group consulted with colleagues across campus, including conducting one-on-one interviews with faculty members and hosting a student focus group. We are pleased to have had the opportunity to work together to draft an online course, which we believe can lead to increased student retention and engagement on campus, as well as higher levels of meaningful employment for our BA graduates.
We look forward to sharing our findings and journey with the Carleton community!
- Meghan Innes, school administrator, School of Public Policy and Administration
- Melissa Haussman, professor, Department of Political Science
- Terry Odin, manager, HRIS & payroll services, Human Resources
- Nestor Querido, supervisor, teaching support services, CUOL
- Yiagadeesen (Teddy) Samy, associate professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs
- Erika Strathearn, assistant registrar, Student Services and Communications
- Shannon Wilmot, communications officer, development, University Advancement