The Los Medanos College Transfer and Career Services have added a new remote service to their roster for the fall semester, the Career Design Studio. The studio is spearheaded by LMC Career Exploration Program Coordinator Edward Beanes and Adjunct Career Counselor and Instructor Mark Isham. 

“The Career Design Studio is an opportunity for LMC students to improve their career literacy by attending virtual workshops offered by the LMC Career Services staff and participating in activities and question-and-answer sessions in a group setting,” Beanes wrote in an email.

The Career Design Studio’s purpose is to give students the opportunity to receive weekly career advice and support in a group context. 

“Maybe you’ve heard the old proverb, ‘Give someone a fish and they eat for a day. Teach someone to fish and they eat for a lifetime?’ Well, we’re hoping to teach LMC students how to fish for their careers so they can leave LMC equipped with essential career survival tools,” wrote Beanes. 

The Career Design Studio will tackle a variety of topics week-to-week, the Sept. 10 meeting was all about things to consider when choosing a major and career. Isham began his presentation describing seven points of consideration when choosing a major, which were, values, interests, personality, experience, knowledge, needs and skills, which are encompassed by culture and identity. 

What’s important to you and why? What holds your attention for a prolonged period of time? What do you know, and how do you know it? Were just some of the questions Isham would ask, in order to help students better understand what they should be thinking about when deciding on a major. 

Later, Isham introduces three major and career assessments, Career Coach, Find Your Grind and Multiple Intelligences, all of which are free-to-use. 

“An assessment is like a questionnaire that you fill out and then after you fill it out you get results that indicate things such as preferences, personality types and interests that help to describe you,” said Isham. 

After filling out the assessments, students will receive suggested majors and careers that fit the answers that they gave. Once a student receives their results, the assessment websites allow students to browse through different majors and career fields related to their results. Beanes had planned to follow-up Isham’s presentation with a custom game of Jeopardy, asking questions related to the topics that were brought up during the meeting, but due to a lack of time, students were unable to play. 

The Career Design Studio will take place every Thursday at 3 p.m. through Zoom. Next week’s topic revolves around finding work during a pandemic. To receive the Zoom link or to find out more about the career assessments, please visit the LMC website. For more information on the Career Design Studio, please contact any of the Transfer and Career Services staff listed here.