This special episode of the CHASIcast to close out National Career Month features guest host Dr. Linda Pardy from CHASI’s Career and Learning for Life Consortium, better known as CALL. Dr. Pardy is joined by students Mayu Ochi and Ava Hedblom to discuss careermapping.ca, a new tool launched by CALL’s team to help future, current, and graduated liberal arts students explore the many paths their careers could take.
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Transcript
CHASIcast voice-over
Coming up, on the CHASIcast…
Linda Pardy
When I work with students, the reassuring part is, people have done this. People are doing this. I can do it too. And career mapping says, Here are the steps
CHASIcast voice-over
CHASI researchers’ new tool for exploring career paths, as explained by two students preparing for graduation.
Mayu Ochi
It’s really overwhelming to think about, but career mapping gives you the very clear picture of how your education skills or big interests can all connect at one point.
CHASIcast voice-over
From UFV’s Community Health and Social Innovation Hub, this is the CHASIcast, a program dedicated to bringing experts and insights to the issues that shape our lives, because Words Have to Matter. Now, here’s your guest host, CHASI researcher, Dr. Linda Pardy.
Linda Pardy
Hi everyone. I’m Linda Pardy, and I’m with the Career and Learning for Life Consortium within CHASI. I’m excited today to be doing this podcast so we can talk about career, education and life, and introduce our new career mapping project, which is an interactive career pathway tool. It’s designed to help all liberal arts students demystify that they’re not going to be just serving coffee, that they’re definitely going to be having multiple career options and a very vibrant future.
I’m excited today to have with me, students and research assistants within CHASI, and they’re going to talk to us a little bit. We’re just gonna have a dialogue actually, and talk about career mapping and the things that we think that students and faculty might find interesting. So you could, you introduce yourself a little bit and tell our listeners, like your background?
Mayu Ochi
Sure. So I’m, I’m Mayu, and I’m from, I’m international student from Japan, and I’m studying economics at UFV right now, and I’m in my fourth year, so the last, no, the next semester gonna be my last.
Linda Pardy
Nice. Welcome, and thank you for taking time to do this with us. It’s really helpful.
Mayu Ochi
Absolutely
Linda Pardy
Ava?
Ava Hedblom
Hi. I’m Ava, and I’m also, in my last year of my program in communications, with a minor in media and communications, and I am just a domestic student here from Abbotsford. And thank you for having me today.
Linda Pardy
There’s no “just”, there’s no “just”, you are Ava, oh, there we go. That’s awesome. Okay, so I gave you the link to career mapping just before it kind of was getting launched. What did you think?
Mayu Ochi
So, I found a career mapping really insightful and helpful, especially to me as a student was going to graduate soon. So, career mapping gave me the more variations, or the options that I could go with my degree. And then there’s some careers that I’ve never thought of, or that my degree would relate to? So there’s so many careers that I can go with my degree, and it’s so interesting to explore all of them.
Linda Pardy
Ava, when you first opened it up, and what did you like?
Ava Hedblom
I loved how honestly, easy to navigate it was. Like, immediately you see the search section and you put your I was like, let me just do that. I just, it just made me I’m curious to learn about what I could do. Because when you are a communications student, like, you ask throughout your the years, like, what? What can I do? Like, what can my career? And you always get a list that can be journalism, writing or communications officer. It’s broad, so you’re almost like, what you know? What could I what could work for me? What could I really go into that works, it aligns with my values and like as a student. But also, what am I interested in? What am I curious about?
Anyways, I found that it was way more basic than I thought, like, the careers that I could choose from, because it was really clear. I liked how when I searched, like communications, it came up, like, officer, coordinator, really specific types of career options that I wouldn’t have been able to learn or come up with if I didn’t see it in front of me and see, like, what options I do have, and it made me more like, set. I’m like, Okay, I could actually go after this with confidence. It made me more confident what I could go after.
Linda Pardy
So when you both came to university, did you have a specific job in mind when you came?
Mayu Ochi
No, absolutely not. Like, I didn’t even know the like, I’m gonna end up taking the economics, like, as my major so, but, I remember that initially, I kind of want, I kind of interested in the some hospitality industry. It’s like, it’s like, tourism related services. So, but like, I know UFV offers some certificate in hospitality. But I kind of didn’t want to narrow down my paths by choosing this certificate, which maybe like, where I would study only about the hospitality. I wanted to explore more different subjects. So I, at UFV, I took several courses, and I I found that economics would be the best fit for me at the time. So yeah,
Linda Pardy
So in prepping to interview you today, I took a look at the economic search, right, and knowing a little bit that you’ve got, you also like visual design, and I didn’t know about the hospitality piece, but when I look at the screen and see all the options that come back, I could see there are hospitality related jobs that require an economics degree. There’s also visual representation of data which is also economic. So I could see there would be a whole variety of things. And so I’ve always thought that career mapping is about expanding your opportunities and not limiting them. And the story you just told is really that you came wanting. You didn’t know what you wanted to take, but you wanted to expand
Mayu Ochi
Exactly. And then I had a broad interest. Like, I like cooking, I like the designing. I like also, like, I also like studying economics, but there’s so many interests, and then it’s really hard to find connections with the one interest to another.
Linda Pardy
Yeah.
Mayu Ochi
But, I feel like the career mapping project really made it easy to see the connection between one subject, like economics, to something in the different field.
Linda Pardy
Yeah, good. I’m glad you were able to see that. And Ava, you mentioned when you looked at it, it allowed you to sort of see where your values were to communications. So if I just said to you, you can be a communications officer, there’s one thing to be a communications officer, say, for police force or the environment or the hospital or an Arts Council, like your values and what you’re interested in, you’re much better as a communications officer for something you’re passionate about,
Ava Hedblom
Yes, which is like arts or English or writing, anything to do with that. Yeah.
Linda Pardy
So when you opened it up, were you able to see occupation titles or positions that kind of thought, oh, I same job, but different sort of feel.
Ava Hedblom
Sort of, I did, but I think I would have liked to have seen it by location, like if you, let’s say it’s a communications coordinator. What jobs like, sorry, what company or where, where could you go for this?
Linda Pardy
So the challenge is, Ava didn’t keep opening up the links because, yeah, which is great, because we’ll be able to, I can show you later where you can go to BC, Ontario, different places federally. So it does link to your provincial areas, but you gotta kind of kind of get down a couple levels. So that’s kind of cool that you’d like to look at that. So when searching by sector, how important do you think that is
Ava Hedblom
Important. Because you’re narrowing down specifically what you would like to work with, find or search for, and it’s just it gets more specific, instead of broad. You’re less confused as a student or less lost, actually, to say, as a student searching for what you could do. Yeah, because I think, and when in our last semesters were, we know we’re both a little bit lost and like what the future pertains. So this kind of has some certainty, for me at least, it makes me feel a little more certain.
Linda Pardy
Yeah, well, I think the motivation behind that design element was that we often hear there’s all kinds of positions in healthcare, there’s all kinds of positions in business, there’s all kinds of positions in STEM but as a liberal arts or a humanities social science or even science student, you think, Well, how do I get from what I’m doing into health. But there’s all kinds of people in liberal arts that work in health or work in business. And so being able to search by sector from a liberal arts lens, you go, Oh, well, I could work in business. I could work in health, yeah, I don’t need to be necessarily, a nurse, right? Or a doctor. You know, we traditionally think of those occupations as pretty set, but those fields are huge.
Ava Hedblom
That’s what I realized.
Linda Pardy
One of the things at CHASI, really, really important piece of work for CHASI is social innovation, human flourishing, making sure that we can see hope, you know, that we can see the future. And I think for a lot of the students I have in my classes and that I work with, they’re starting to talk about the economy being really tough, finding a career, a stable, sustainable career, as really tough. Um, for years we hear the rhetoric that the liberal arts lead to, nothing like you’ll always be in a service job. So students get quite, you know, almost depressed, like a little bit anxious about, I’m about to graduate. What am I going to do? So I’m wondering if you’re both about to graduate, and you’re both wrestling with, what am I going to do? What role do you think career mapping can have in helping with that?
Mayu Ochi
Like, it’s really overwhelming to think about after graduate for most of the student, I agree. But like, career mapping gives you the very, very clear picture of how your education skills, or maybe interest can all connect at one point. And then like, it also like reflects some experience of the experience of the graduates which would have similar background with mine, and that is really reassuring.
Linda Pardy
Yeah, I think for me, when I work with students, on the reassuring part, people have done this, people are doing this. I can do it too. And career mapping says Here are the steps in how to do it. Ava, what do you think about you know, does it make, did [it] make you feel more like when you contacted me and you said, Oh, thanks for something, I went down a rabbit hole. That’s what she said. I went down a rabbit hole and started looking at what I could do for my career.
Ava Hedblom
Mayu wrapped it up perfect, like, kind of exact same that I would makes me feel more confident, like, in what I could do after graduation. Like, Oh, I can go for this. I can apply for this. And, like, I know that I it’s, it aligns with me, but also makes me more certain about what I could work on,
Linda Pardy
yeah, like, what other experiences you could get? Or, yeah, yeah, cool.
Mayu Ochi
So I know a student, or, I mean, my friend who is actually interested in anthropology, but in the business program, this is because she thought that there will be more option for business student rather than anthropology student. But I think career mapping would help her to think that how anthropology degree take further than she think, or even other people would think, and she doesn’t have, I think if we had the career mapping earlier, she maybe [would] not give up taking the anthropology course or degree, and maybe she was happier, I don’t know, but I mean, a career mapping would give you more possibilities?
Linda Pardy
Yeah, I think so. Like, I mean, that’s, again, one of the reasons it’s searchable by subject and then by sector. So someone who’s passionate about anthropology could then see, what can I do in business with an anthropology degree, because you raise a really good point about being happy like, when you get to be my age, you realize how long you have to work, like you have to work a long time in life, right? And so I think sometimes, you’re so worried about your first job, your first career, that you think, what credential am I going to get that’ll get me a job now, but the question of human flourishing, or how am I going to do well over the course of my lifetime, is, how am I going to be happy? How am I going to be well? How am I going to sustain myself? How am I going to feel passionate about getting up in the morning and driving in the dark rain to my job.
So you’ve got to kind of think of, what do I like to study, what’s going to excite me, and then those skills from there, where can I apply it? And I’m hoping that’s definitely what career mapping will be able to do. Is like you said, early on, right if you would have had it early on, and so it’s lovely that you’re seeing it now. But maybe my next question is, where do you think students should be introduced to this?
Ava Hedblom
Almost everywhere, if that makes sense. Like in on campus somehow, like poster QR, code teachers, etc. Like to first year students, for sure, especially for second maybe second year students, because first year you’re still figuring things out a little bit and settling in, but and definitely social media, like CHASI hub social media, Instagram, the UFV SUS page. Like those pages too, because I think the UFV, like the SUS one is really, like, popular, like, there’s a lot of followers on there, and there’s a lot of content. So that would be a good place, because you would have like, a few posts or video on it, and then it gives, you know, students like the interest, like to explore it a little bit.
Linda Pardy
And do you think it would help students, say, in high school or first year, like, starting to be aware that there’s lots of options I don’t know, or is it too much information?
Mayu Ochi
No, definitely, like knowing this existence and when you are in high school would be very helpful. I was at, when UFV had open house. I was there as I was sitting there in the economics department booth, and everyone was really curious about, what can we do with this economic degree, and we had that career mapping board, and then even a parent or the students themselves were super curious about the careers. So I think, and then also, like the career mapping gives you the pathways advice, like, what can you, what you can do before graduate or attain this degree, to be in the job. Definitely like being exposed when you were student, being exposed to career mapping, while your high school student helps you see more, broader ways.
Ava Hedblom
It’s a resource that should be offered in multiple ways. Like, I mean, to high school students are like, kind of like, you know, how you get multiple resources. It could be like an important one, like one that gets like advertised.
Linda Pardy
One thing I’ve been curious about when I mean as a faculty member, I know students that always come in, I think, Ava, you said, I ask my faculty, I ask, What can I do with this degree? I people seem to ask their instructors, what am I going to do? Like, what can you do? But then I’m not sure always if instructors know the full range of everything that they can do. Yeah, has that been your experience? Or where do you think students ask for career advice?
Ava Hedblom
Oh, my academic advisor. That’s a good start. But mostly online sources. I always looked online for sources, usually, indeed, or what else, LinkedIn for those resources. I usually looked online actually, even as, like a second, first year student. I did, I did it all online because you’re right about the instructor, they’re going to have a really biased opinion based on their own, you know, their own credentials and, yeah, etc,
Linda Pardy
Yeah. One thing I’m playing with the idea is that you’re getting this in the hands of faculty, so that when students come and say, What can I do with it, they can say, well, here, I don’t know these are things, but I start to at least align what we’re teaching with all the occupations that are available.
Ava Hedblom
Career mapping website could be offered as a resource, yeah? Like, teachers can be like, well, here’s this, yeah, yeah. Like, here’s my here’s my opinion, but here’s more.
Right. Here’s more, yeah, yeah, the here’s more piece.
Mayu Ochi
They can talk about their experiences or the cases they have seen, but I think even the faculty doesn’t know there’s so many options with this degree. So, yeah.
Linda Pardy
So Mayu as an international student, like, just think about, how do you think career mapping could help students make decisions to come to Canada to study? Would it be helpful that it make them feel more relaxed? Would be more stressful, I don’t know.
Mayu Ochi
Yeah, definitely, as an international student, I came here, and then I was in the very I was, I had really huge homesick, because that was especially during the COVID time. So I was totally alone. And then, like, you know, in an you’re making bigger investment in Canada. So you also feel the pressure from parents like, and then I have to make this degree like, I have to use this degree in a good way or best way. So you feel pressured So, but you don’t know what to do like, or you don’t know if you will be successful to be in Canada, but with the career mapping, the career mapping definitely gives you the more insight of where you would go with the degree and gives you more confidence. Like, okay, that was not mistake to be to like, that was not mistake to decide to be in Canada for studying or attaining this degree. So and then also, I think, parents also will be reassured that their children with this degree can go further than they expect.
Linda Pardy
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it does have that potential to make people feel a little bit more confident. I mean, success is always up to the individual student, and the risk is still there. But I’m a person where unless I can sort of see it, an example of it, I have a hard time imagining it. So just to talk or read a brochure, or you can have a career from this degree, I get a bit nervous. But if I can see it and map it and say, Oh, these are what people are doing, and here’s jobs and things, makes me relax a bit.
Mayu Ochi
Yeah, definitely.
Linda Pardy
Okay. So my last question to both of you is, what surprised you the most, using career mapping, like something you didn’t expect?
Ava Hedblom
How specific the jobs are. I was like, Oh, I have to do some more, like searching and more deep diving, because it exactly like the sector thing gives you more of that, the broadness to find, because when I just searched communications, I was like, kind of disappointed. I’m like, That’s it? I’m like, I feel like there’s more […] skills that I have and values that I have, that I could bring more into. So I thought, like, that’s it. But that’s why I like that sector thing that you mentioned, and that’s why I did that, because it gives you, it makes you feel liberated to want to go out to the work, yeah, to the workforce.
Linda Pardy
And did you try searching the hybrid jobs where you’re adding communications with something else?
I think so, yeah.
Yeah. Because I think you know you’re right, like specificity, or whatever, however you say that is a good word, in the sense that you have to be specific to get you to where you’re going. But on the other hand, it’s also expanding at the same time. So it’s, that would be surprising, that it’s narrow and it can expand all within, you know, half an hour of sitting there playing with it,
Ava Hedblom
Yeah, or less.
Linda Pardy
Yeah, or less. Yeah, no, that’s awesome. Yeah, what surprised you Mayu?
Mayu Ochi
So definitely the number of jobs that will be available for the economics degree. So, like, I assumed the most part with economic degree would be something very traditional, like finance or consulting, but that was not my interest. But like, when I see it, I see so many connections with like, it’s more, I found economics degree more versatile. So it’s like, it can be anything like, and then like I’m like, Hmm, so, and then like, I found that like the job, so, for example, if you find the financial analysis, on the page, you’ll see if it’s in demand job or not. And then also gives us the the range of salary. And then that’s, I was like, Oh, wow. It gives me so much detailed information. And then also the advice, if before graduating, and then after, and then, like, I’m so surprised at how useful the career mapping would be, because, maybe you would expect, okay, so many career options, here, here, here, but, like, you didn’t expect that gives you so much directions with the with empirical data, and then that’s really strong and solid.
Linda Pardy
One of the unique features, I think it has. I mean, I’ve used career resources for a lifetime, and we’re always great at telling people from this education, here’s a handful of occupations and even here’s a handful of other occupations, but we never tell students how to get them, you know. And there’s an academic advisors don’t necessarily know how you get I mean, they know how to get you to a professional designation or to a really linear step from A to B, but people who take different varied pathways or occupations that require hybrid different skills, we say this is an occupation from that degree, but we don’t tell you how to get there, and then they leave you guessing or having to figure it out. And I think behind mapping is what they’re trying to do in that advice page, is give you some clues. How did these people get to that occupation? This is what they did. This is what they’re doing now. This is, you know, the steps. This is kind of the skills you want to bring. And that, to me, was the surprise that I thought, Okay, this is more than this is an occupation to this degree. This is an occupation pathway of what you could do, like a map, like a hiking map, you know, watch out for the waterfall, go over the bridge, you know, fill up your water canteen. Like, do all these things, and you’ll arrive, right? It gives you that information, a GPS.
Ava Hedblom
As I like, sit here and talk about it. And like I said, now that we’ve talked about it way more in depth, I realized how needed this is actually, because they would. It’s true, academic advising only gives you a little bit, and this is just so good for someone who is taking a minor, a major, or just is doing different things, like wants to do business, anthropology or technology, there you go. Like, it’s really laid out simply. And like, yeah, it’s really easy to navigate. Easy to navigate, easy to use, and good for anybody.
Linda Pardy
Yeah, thank you, yeah. Well, it’s been wonderful spending time with you and keep playing with career mapping. Spread it to your friends and so, thanks so much for contributing and CHASI thanks you for all this amazing work you’re doing.
Ava Hedblom
Thank you for having me.
Mayu Ochi
Yeah, thank you for having me too.