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This site is under reconstruction: some categories are now converted to pages, which are being updated and reviewed.

I read a review of this website that “highly recommends” it for “all levels” of students. Quintessential Careers. It has an amazing amount of free information: advice, quizzes, examples of letters, a newsletter, job search database. Lots of advice, even informational videos. But (you heard that coming, didn’t you?) it includes a lot of intrusive advertising. For example, tooling around on the site opened several versions of a new window with a fake newspaper article toting working from home “opportunities”. Internal links in what seemed like perfectly legit articles open not links to more info, but links to those annoying “What career do you want?” moving little people ads. Anyway, I’d say there’s enough good here to use this site, but keep your eyes peeled and your cynicism honed.

This post on the Inside Higher Ed site talks about what students seem to know and not know about research. I don’t find any of this surprising, but I bet your professors would.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/04/13/george

Vid from Project Information Literacy about the prevalence of PROCRASTINATION. Oh, no, not you, too????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMtQWgx_Fc

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2
006/the-word—wikiality

Do you love Colbert? Let’s agree on this reality: truth can be manipulated.

This page was pointed out to me by Lorraine Wochna. Each year Educause (”Advancing learning through IT Innovation”)posts its “7 Things” list — the 7 tech ideas they think will matter in the long run.

Here’s This Year’s List.

07, 06, and 05 are here, too, and I’d say they hit about 5 out of 7 for those years, so it makes me want to pay attention to the things on this list that I’m not familiar with.

This is corroborated by another blog post, “Nothing Beats Texting,” sent to me by Chad Boeninger.

This article says student-age people do use e-mail, but mostly as an adjunct to their social networking!

Taken together, these keep me thinking creative thoughts about reaching underclassmen. What do you think?

US News and World Report has tagged librarianship as one of their “Best Careers, 2009.”  In shameless professional promotion mode, I have to say, they are right.  It’s a great job.

Many careers have a national association, for example, the American Library Association, for whom dispensing info about that career is part of their mission.   Here are a few of these:

What do Geoscientists Do?

Zoo Keeping as a Carrer

Women of NASA

A Career guide for the Atmospheric Sciences

Careers in Cartography or GIS

A Career in Newspapers

and, of course:

Library Careers

Transitioning to College is a video exploration of how college life can be different and confusing to a new student.  OK, the vids are a little hokey, but they are true and real, quick and useful.  3 of the 5 sections focus on library info.  I especially like the one called “Talking to Databases” because it describes how to make databases behave.   “Down, Database, Down.  Sit. Good database.” No, not really, but using ANDs ORs and truncation makes a big difference.

The Allen Student Help Center is located in Baker 419 and is open most days until 7 p.m. The Allen student help center is a wonderful resource on campus that offers guidance for students who have concerns about a class, have no idea what is going on in a class academically, or just needs help with a certain subject. They specialize in helping with study skills, have Academic success workshops, and walk in or appointment assistance.

The Allen Student help center specializes in workshops about academic success and choosing a major. You can register for one of these workshops on their website and are a great tool for helping decide just exactly you want to do for the rest of your life. There is also a link to the powerpoint presentation that is used at the workshop on their site to use as a tool in helping pick a major.

Another good tool available for your use is the information about probation and policies used by the university. This resource is excellent for the student that has been put onto academic probation and do not know what to do next, or what exactly academic probation is and what it means to be on it.

The best part of the Allen Student Help Center is that you can go there with any question pertaining about anything, and they will do their best to answer it for you, or at least send you to where you need to be to get it answered. They tackle everything from helping students with classes, to internships, getting involved in the Athens community, where to shop, etc. They also provide information about services both they and the university offer, and how to obtain those services.

The Allen Student Help Center not only offers academic help, but also counseling services and links to counseling around the OU community and in Athens, for any need you may have. Through either the student help center or through OU, you can obtain information about the Counselors-In-Residence program and after hours counseling.

So, the Allen Student Help center isn’t just about academics. It’s all about the student, and helping them with whatever they need to get through college in one piece, because we all know just how difficult that can be.