Pasadena City College’s Career Exploration Series Aims to Help Students Choose Career Path

Pasadena City College launches its Career Exploration Series on Thursday, Sept. 29, aiming to help students unsure of what career they want to choose explore their options and connect with a career advisor. 

“The Exploration Series is all about directly connecting students with their career communities and its resources. And so this will consist of face-to-face conversations with faculty, fellow students in their career, community professionals in the industry, alumni, as well as clubs and organizations,” said PCC Career Communities coordinator Brianna L. Broady. 

“In terms of who should attend this event, it’s open to all PCC students, faculty, as well as staff within each designated career community.”

Hosted by the PCC Success Centers, the series, called “PCC and Beyond,” begins with an Overall Career Exploration event at the college’s Robert G. Freeman Center for Career and Completion. 

The sessions include a Student Career Exploration Event from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and a Faculty Professional Development Session from 1 to 2 p.m.

“At this first event, students will be offered career counseling, career advising appointments. They’re going to learn about different websites where they can find internships, work-based learning, and all sorts of amazing resources that our career center has to offer,” Renee Johansson, also a Career Communities coordinator at PCC, added.

In the future, PCC plans to open this career exploration series up to the community, local high schools and other individuals and institutions that are involved in career guidance, Broady said.

As an overall career community exploration, the event on Thursday will include all six PCC career communities: STEM, Business and Industry, Health Sciences and Wellness, Liberal Arts, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Arts, Communication and Design.

“That is a chance for students to come and explore what resources the career center has, and to realize that the beauty of community college is that you don’t necessarily have to know which career community you belong to yet, but that these resources are here to help students figure out what their passions are, what future careers they’re interested in. And sometimes it might relate to more than one career community,” Johansson added.

After Thursday’s event, the next exploration series on Oct. 6 will feature conversations with faculty members from each PCC career community at the PCC Quad. In this “Tacos to Taco’ Bout Career with Faculty,” students will have a chance to meet the PCC faculty and find out how they explored their majors and careers.

“This is also for all six career communities as well,” Johansson said. “It’s going to be a chance for students to see what the success centers look like that are designated for each career community. They’ll get to see and meet the success coaches there, tutors available, what resources they have to offer. And we’re also going to have faculty present as our lovely cheesy name is ‘Tacos to Taco ’bout Career.’ They’re going to talk about careers, eat some tacos in the Quad with faculty, and hear about how they got to where they’re at as well.”

On Oct. 11, the series will feature the PCC Liberal Arts career community, followed by the other career communities through spring 2023.

“The purpose of these events is to showcase the majors, organizations and programs offered within each specific career community as well as which careers can be pursued in each,” Broady said. “So each event is going to be set up catered towards the audience of the students. And so if it’s a little bit more of a visual career community, they might have demonstrations that are going on.”

For more information about the Career Exploration Series, visit www.pasadena.edu/academics/support/success-centers/events.php.

To know about PCC’s Career Communities, visit www.pasadena.edu/explore-your-career/#scroll-gp-career-communities.