On Sept. 4, Stanford’s Career Development Center (CDC) announced a new identify for its career education services: Bridging Education, Ambition, and Meaningful Work (BEAM). Like the CDC, BEAM will focus on helping students find connections, build a personalized network and find meaningful work. The service also aims to be more accessible to students.
“We wanted a simple, memorable, and positive acronym that is driven by our vision statement: students transform their education and ambitions into meaningful work over the course of their lifetime,” wrote Farouk Dey, dean of career education, in his description of BEAM.
Dey noted that Stanford students wish to do more than just land a job after graduating: they want to do something meaningful. BEAM’s team of 34 career educators “educate, rather than place people in jobs” and will be working with both undergraduate and graduate students.
One of the major changes BEAM will be implementing is a new connections model. Students can now schedule an appointment with an advisor on Handshake, a site where Stanford students can find and upload job applications, register for career fairs and create a profile for potential employers. Handshake replaced Cardinal Careers earlier this year.
Advisors will then connect students with career exploration treks and fairs, alumni for mentorship and employers for shadowing, internship and job opportunities. BEAM says that this approach will help students create a highly personalized network that will shape a student’s professional journey.
This new connections model will also make it easier for other members of the Stanford community, such as alumni, parents, faculty and employers, to find students and contribute to students’ professional development. The careers educators will also be proactive about reaching out to students instead of waiting for them to come to the center.
“The word ‘center’ has been eliminated to emphasize a new institutional culture of career education that all stakeholders can connect with beyond the walls of a building… The days of a ‘brick-and-mortar’ career services are over,” Dey said. “Our career educators are connected everywhere on and off campus to help expand and leverage the Stanford ecosystem for our students.”
Contact Jeremy Quach at jquach ‘at’ stanford.edu.