To better help students when planning their academic path, Career Services needs to aggressively market its resources to students, and students need to seek out these services even if they aren’t immediately aware of them.

Career Services aims to guide students at every stage of their career development, according to the Career Services webpage. Unfortunately, it seems many students still struggle with making decisions concerning academic and career plans.

Making an informed decision on an academic path can be one of the most important decisions a student will make for their professional life. A college degree heavily pre-disposes students toward certain career paths; at least 27.9 percent of jobs require college degrees, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During the 2016-2017 school year, there were 871 “undecided” majors, according to the NIU data book 2016-2017.

One of the reasons a student may have difficulty settling on an academic plan is they might not know what they want to study.

However, Career Services excels in offering career counseling, workshops, internships, professional talks, career tests and options that show students what jobs relate to what majors the most.

Unfortunately, it seems many students don’t take advantage of the resources available to them until the very end of their college careers; 52 percent of graduate students use their university’s career services, according to a 2016 Perdue-Gallup study. Graduate students primarily use Career Services for resume building, internship opportunities and job postings. Despite NIU’s resources and services, not always being known to its students, there is still an individual responsibility a student has to seek out guidance and employ different strategies to help them find their ideal academic plan.

“I feel like students don’t care enough to use Career Services. It’s easier to Google something rather than use a resource that’s actually helpful to them as an individual,” said sophomore drawing major Adrian Castaneda.

One of the strategies students can employ to fix this lack of awareness is to use elective credits to take classes outside of their major. When a student takes 12 credit hours of classes within a semester, they’re considered a full-time student and can enroll in additional courses without paying any extra tuition, according to the Tuition, Fees and Surcharges page on the NIU website. Students will still be required to cover supplies and class fees, but paying a little extra to find out if an interest can blossom into a fulfilling career is a very justifiable expense.

Something NIU can do to promote the resources and events that are available to students is to post more flyers in well populated areas, such as dining halls and study areas. Many more students would attend the Career Center’s events if they were more aware of the events taking place.

“I didn’t know about Career Services before.” Said Gabby Ivanez, sophomore art education major,” Something like that could be very valuable to someone like me who needs to know what things I have to do step by step for my courses.”

The most important thing to remember is that it’s ok to be unsure of academic plans, but students owe it to themselves to seek out guidance even if students aren’t immediately aware of the resources available to them. Career Services also needs to market the resources they offer students more aggressively to catch the eyes of students who are` struggling with the direction of their academic career.