Anyone can go out and get a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s. But what about a real job coming out of university? Your logical first stop would be Ryerson’s Career Centre.
If that’s your plan, go quickly. By December the Career Centre will be gone.
“I’d hate to be the only university in Canada without a career centre, especially as a polytechnic university,” Nancy Trefiak, the Career Centre’s manager, told me last month.
With funding cuts and the end of the $200,000 grant that the centre has been operating on, January 1996 will see Ryerson without what may be our most valuable on-campus resource.
It is time for us, as Ryerson students, to fight for the Career Centre’s survival.
Nancy Trefiak took me for a closer look at what we would be losing, and the gold mine of opportunities that lie within the walls of the fourth floor job library.
I was flabbergasted.
“I wish we had the time, and the staff to give everyone this in-depth look at what we have,” Trefiak told me while we toured the centre. And if you went on the tour I went on, you would see just how amazing the Career Centre can be.
The most obvious, and most used resource is the job board, listing full- and part-time jobs available. But look a little deeper into the Career Centre and you will be amazed.
There are a number of books on preparing resumes, and employment counsellors to help you with them.
Where do you want to work?
What about a summer working in Europe, South America or the Pacific Rim? Have that resume ready because there is an entire section devoted to international job searches, and job openings around the world and what you can expect in the foreign country of your choice.
Canada is also covered, coast to coast, from simplest forms — newspaper classified pages – to government job listings, to The North American Employer, to a computer link to Canada Employment Centre job listings.
The Career Centre also has an extensive list of employers who have hired Ryerson graduates in the past.
The next stage in getting a job is the interview, and this is where the Career Centre’s hidden gem is found. The centre provides the opportunity not only to discuss any concerns you may have about an interview, but also to have a practice interview with an employment counsellor and hone your skills.
So, new President Claude Lajeunesse, Ryerson VP Administration Linda Grayson, and RyeSAC President Paul Cheevers: make saving the Career Centre your priority.
Ryerson students: get off the apathy train, get your ass out from behind your desk or off the couch, and make your voice heard.
As students of Ryerson, our rallying cry has been known as “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” Without the Career Centre our options will be limited.
We can not let Ryerson become the only Canadian university without a career centre. Unless, of course, your lifelong ambition is flipping burgers.
Rob Granatstein
Journalism 3
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