Senioritis. It’s real, and it may be hitting our senior students in a big way as they come back for their last semester before leaving the comforts of The Bluff for the “real world.” The last semester will be packed with reading, tests, final projects, applications, and overall life discernment of “what’s next.” While your student may be tempted to become apathetic towards their academic affairs, you can play an important role in supporting and motivating them to get to the finish line! This doesn’t mean personally solving all their problems or finding them their dream job. Probably the most important thing you can do over the next few months is to listen and reassure them that everything is going to be okay.

Another way to support your student is to be aware of these upcoming events, traditions, and resources for seniors:

Commencement: May 1–3, 2020

• Of course, the biggest event looming in the future for our senior students this semester is Commencement! Luckily the Commencement website is full of helpful information for both you and your student. Your student will want to pay special attention to the Commencement action item list to make sure they’re not missing any important events or deadlines. There is also a special section just for you, our guests that weekend. May will be here before we know it, so we encourage our families to plan ahead for what will be a busy, wonderful weekend filled with memorable moments.

Grad Fair: February 4, 2020

• The Grad Fair is the Class of 2020’s one-stop shop for all the information they need about Commencement. All soon-to-be graduates are encouraged to stop by to ask questions or to purchase Commencement-related products. The Office of University Events staff will be available to answer graduation questions. Encourage your student to attend!

Application due date for Career CrossFit: February 5, 2020

• Is your Senior thinking about what’s next? Are they wondering what they will do after graduation? Tell them the Career Center is here to help! Career CrossFit is a 3-session mini-series designed to help jumpstart their job search. Attendance at all three workshops is expected. The dates are February 7, 14, and 21 from 3–4 p.m. Students can access the application by logging into Handshake or Engage and checking out the events page.

Life After UP – #Adulting: March 26, 2020

• Does thinking about the real world make your student want to put on pajamas and crawl into bed for a Netflix marathon? Seniors are invited to learn about Money Sense and How to Create Community Post-Grad at an event on March 26 called Life After UP: #Adulting. There will be time for seniors to share anything that they’re anxious about as they begin to navigate Life After UP. Members of UP’s GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Board and other UP alumni will be there to share advice and talk about how their journey after UP led them to where they are now. Spoiler: they’re still learning too! We encourage seniors to come eat pizza, learn a few things, and talk about how everything is going to be okay.

Senior Weekend at the Coast: March 27–28, 2020

• In their last semester as UP students, all seniors have the opportunity to retreat from the rush of senior year and spend a weekend at the coast with their friends. This one-night retreat invites them to celebrate their experiences on The Bluff and gather wisdom for impending transitions.

Founders’ Day: April 7, 2020

• On Founders’ Day, the University of Portland pauses to celebrate its rich past and promising future. UP honors its bold leaders who dared to dream of a Catholic university overlooking the Willamette River and learns from its most outstanding seniors whose research as undergraduates portends great things for the future. In recognition of the importance of both the past and the future, the University holds no classes on a Tuesday in April and instead opens its doors to learn from our best and brightest students.

Senior Night: April 22, 2020

• Seniors are invited to a special evening including the “Last Lecture” in the Chapel, the Closing Bell Tower Ceremony, and Prost with Profs in the Pilot House.

Anchors Away: April 30, 2020

• The Campus Program Board hosts this special event on the last day of finals week during the spring semester where faculty, staff, and students celebrate the successes of the year.

Cap & Gown Pick Up: April 30–May 1, 2020

Career Fairs: The University of Portland will host four career fairs, plus additional events and programs in the spring of 2020.

• Friday, February 21, 2020.  The 2020 SWE STEM Career Fair will take place from 1:30–4:30 p.m. in Bauccio Commons, organized by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) student organization, Shiley School of Engineering, and the Career Center. Employers will be recruiting for both internships and full-time positions within the areas of Computer Science, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Bio-Medical Engineering (Graduate) as well as Biology, Chemistry, Bio-Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Environmental Science, and Operations & Technology Management.

• Thursday, March 5, 2020. The Education Career Fair will take place from 5:30–7 p.m. in the Bauccio Commons.

• Friday, March 20, 2020. The UP Spring Job Fair with Graduate Schools will take place from 11 a.m.–2 p.m. in the University of Portland Chiles Center.

• Monday, April 20, 2020. The Health Professionals Fair will be held from 6–8 p.m. at the University of Portland.

• Other career related events can be found here.

Alumni & Parent Relations: Ongoing

• Both before and after graduation, the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations is here to support your student, including through the Students Today, Alumni Tomorrow program. Revisit this article about how our office can help connect students and provide resources.

• One way that students can build connections is through UP Switchboard, the online platform where Pilots ask for what they need and offer what they have within the trusted University of Portland community. This is the perfect time for seniors to seek advice from UP alumni all over the country on careers, traveling, applying to grad school, and more. Encourage your student to sign up!

• Throughout the spring semester, representatives from the Office of Alumni & Parent Relations will be making classroom visits to connect with seniors and share information about the resources available to them through their office.

Gwynn Klobes ’08, ’14, Director of Personal and Professional Development in the Pamplin School of Business, is driven by student success and University of Portland’s mission of holistic education. She directed the creation, development, and implementation of a required professional development program (P4) where all students participate in activities that assist them in figuring out their path in life. Gwynn has a three-fold lens into the UP experience–that of a student, a parent, and a staff member during the development of the program. She is now a published author in this subject in the Journal of the Academy of Business Education with an article entitled “Maximizing the Educational Investment with a Required Personal and Professional Development Program for Business Majors.” This program enables her to guide and assist students with their transition from academia to a vocation. In the article below, Gwynn shares about her work and the Pamplin School of Business experience through the lens of the P4–Pamplin Professional Preparation Program!

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In 2007, the Pamplin School of Business began to discuss how we could better challenge our students to not only find a job after graduation, but also to discover a vocation. We developed a mantra: “A job pays the bills; a career is about self; but a vocation is about self in the context of community.” We strived for a tangible way to help students answer the University Core Questions of “Who Am I?” and “Who Am I Becoming?” From this came the development of the P4–Pamplin Professional Preparation Program, a required curricular program providing a mechanism for a holistic learning experience to foster students’ preparation to enter the world as business leaders.

The P4 goes beyond the classroom and provides a robust educational experience for students, guiding them through the right-fit vocation discernment process and helping them pursue lives rich with meaning and purpose. Additionally, the P4 has strengthened the University’s relationship with the business community and alumni, as they are active contributors to the program. With connections to over 500 companies in the Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco areas, P4 helps students build a professional network in which they can pursue their passions and find right-fit vocations. On average each year, 250 alumni connect with students. Many of those alumni return to campus to share their experiences and advice with students. Since the inception of the P4, 100% of junior business majors have completed internships, and an average of 93% of seniors are employed within six months of graduation. The professional networks students create provide a solid foundation for them to explore their passions. Because of the students’ participation in many professional experiences, the P4 also gives employers confidence that our students will adapt well to professional work environments.

P4 better prepares and challenges students to discern and pursue a vocation that builds on their strengths by requiring experiences such as personal assessments, job shadows, a ropes course, informational and mock interviews with alumni, networking dinners, speed-networking, volunteer service, portfolio production, and professional internships. This strategy of conceptualizing, developing, and communicating culminates in a personal brand video employing marketing concepts, giving students a competitive advantage in finding a vocation. The video helps students articulate who they are and who they are becoming as professionals and leaders. This video is a transformative experience for our students, as it requires honest reflection about who they are as people and discernment in how they want to go forward in a vocation.

P4 encourages students to approach this process creatively and spend time deciding how to depict themselves through pictures and videography. These video resume packages have three layers of digital assets: the video itself, a voice over, and a music overlay. Students upload their personal brand videos to LinkedIn, where they can share them with prospective employers. Learning to edit video is an additional skill set that is increasingly valuable and relevant given the growing technological importance in the work place. Students are then ready to go find that “right-fit” internship.

P4’s unique combination of traditional theoretical curriculum and experiential learning gives students a competitive advantage. Each activity’s impact is largely defined by the individual student, giving students power over their own learning and allowing them to explore their passions while developing their leadership abilities. Particularly, the personal brand video facilitates each student’s discernment about “who they are” and “who they are becoming,” and allows them to communicate this to prospective employers in a creative vehicle to help them pursue their vocation.

Learn more about P4 through the program website and video.

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Gwynn Klobes ’08, ’14 is a double degree holder from the University of Portland. She received her BA in Theology in 2008 and her MBA in 2014. She has been married to her husband Jeff for 38 years, is the mother of four kids (two of whom are alumni of UP), and a grandmother to eight.