CAP Welcomes You to Planning Your Future 101

Are you a freshman and still haven’t figured out your major? Are you a sophomore or junior and all of your friends getting internships? Are you a senior and still looking for a job? Have you started to panic? Well, Dukes, don't panic just yet.

Career and Academic Planning, or CAP as they call it, provides JMU with a hub for all things future. Stated on the resource center tab of their website last updated this year, the CAP center is located on the 3rd floor of the Student Success Center and is open to anyone looking for guidance including students, staff, alumni, faculty, and community members.

From the start of your time here at JMU, CAP is dedicated to lending a hand to all Dukes in need of direction, support, or even just an extra resource. Let’s break down some of CAP’s most helpful resources into specific needs for each academic year so Dukes can use to them to their best advantage.

Are you a freshman?

Whoa, you’re telling me that I have to pick out a major that determines my academic and future careers, and I still haven’t even mastered my own laundry? Yeah, it’s a lot to ask of freshman students to make this decision. But, CAP makes this puzzling process easy for those Dukes who are struggling.

On CAP’s main website, they provide students with a tab labeled simply labeled “Choose a Major or Career." Under the Consider What Matters to You tab, CAP has compiled a list of important personal categories to think about when choosing a major. For example, the Personality section guides students through some simple questions to ask themselves before they can make a decision. Most helpfully, CAP provides a list like these online resources to streamline the process:

• Keirsey Temperament Sorter

• Personalitytype.com

• MyPersonality

Are you a sophomore or junior?

So you've made it to the middle years of your academic career. These are the years that matter most to a lot of Dukes. Once you’ve hit this point, the dreaded search for an internship all of the sudden falls into your lap faster than they tore down D-Hall. And knowing the most common time a college student gets an internship is their second year, sophomores are stressed, and intern-less juniors are going crazy (“State of College Hiring” 2015). CAP understands these pressures, and is here to help you.

The Internship Resources page outlines all of the things Dukes should know about internships before they even start looking. From ways to make yourself stand out to the differences between paid and unpaid internships, CAP’s got your back with the facts. Most helpfully, CAP holds weekly “Internships 101” workshops that provide Dukes with a place to learn how to get started in a small group setting in order to simply structure your search as stated on their website page.

What’s the best part about it? These workshops require no appointments and are always at a different time on a different day to fit into your busy schedule. You can find all available workshop dates and times on the CAP events calendar.

Are you a senior?

Don’t say the “g word." No Duke is ready to come to terms with graduating and moving into the world of adulthood. But this is the most inevitable part of your JMU experience. As Dukes, we know we stand out from competition. We have been so conditioned to apply and better ourselves everyday in order to be successful humans. However, job searching is one of those things that will never be easy.

Did you know that 72% of college students use online career profiles to find jobs (“State of College Hiring” 2015)? Recruit-A-Duke is one of JMU’s most outstanding resources on the CAP website for senior Dukes. RAD is an online career search available to all students and alumni. Signing up is as simple as punching in your 9-digit student ID number. From there, you can upload a resume, add a professional picture, create an attractive profile and get to looking. The CAP website reports over 1,000 job postings to search through. So, seniors, use CAP resources like RAD to ease the stress of your job search.

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CAP to the Rescue

No matter what year you currently are, CAP has an answer for you. The most important part of resources like CAP is that you use them. JMU has got our back, Dukes, and our university really wants to see us succeed. Make a plan to visit the CAP resource center, or even just their website to get planning today.

References:

Career & Academic Planning. (n.d.). Retrieved October 10, 2016, from https://jmu.edu/cap/index.shtml

State of College Hiring. (2015, January 1). Retrieved October 10, 2016, from https://www.looksharp.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/State-of-College-Hiring-2015-Report.pdf

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