How to Find a Career Path and Gain Useful Experience as an Undergraduate

I am a contributing writer to eHow.com and have found useful information that relates to college. This author was kind enough to share his articles to my blog site. His name is Neil O'Donnell, a career and an academic advisor for students and alumni at a liberal arts college. Additionally, he is an author of fantasy-genre manuscripts. Here's what he wrote:

We've all faced the dilemma that "you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience." For undergraduate students (and to some extent grad students), this is a particularly disturbing reality, which causes more anxiety than it ought to.

How do you overcome this trap? Ultimately, it comes down to a student spending her or his college years wisely. For my advisees, I recommend the following series of steps, which provides a better chance of competing for jobs immediately upon graduation. How do I know these steps work? These are the steps I took, which allowed me to successfully compete with other applicants who had experience and advanced degrees while I only recently graduated with my bachelor's.

Step 1 - Freshmen Year:
• Take “Strong Interest Inventory” or other career assessments in your college’s Career Center – discuss results with a Career Center Counselor (feedback from career center staff provides valuable direction)
• Speak with campus professors related to majors you’re interested in pursuing as potential careers. Make sure to ask them about specific career options within the major and courses you should consider taking (and why?)
• Ask professors what entry-level (summer) jobs would provide valuable experience. Ask what volunteer experiences would also be helpful (both for gaining knowledge and experience).
• Start working on a resume with Career Center staff.

Step 2 - Sophomore Year:
• Continue working with professors for course advisement. Focus on classes that relate to your long term interests.
• Discuss internship possibilities with your professors (what are good options for those pursuing careers in your selected major). Also discuss whether graduate school is a necessity.
• Continue adjusting/updating your resume with counselors in the Career Center.

Step 3 - Junior Year:
• Start looking at graduate schools; ask your department advisor for direction in selecting graduate programs that best suit your long term interests/career goals
• Complete an internship or seek job experience as directly related to your career path as possible.
• Continue adjusting/updating your resume with counselors.

Step 4 - Senior Year:
• Apply to graduate schools. Apply to at least three to four choices.
• If internship experience changes your thoughts about career options, try to find another experience related to the new direction.
• Build list of 3 to 5 references for use in applying to graduate school and/or jobs. Ask each reference to supply you with a reference letter, and submit those letters to your college career center to be placed on file for future use.