This winter, students will have the option to learn about the ever-changing and competitive professional world outside of K-State with intersession courses that offer career management assistance.
“Achieving Career Success” is a three-credit hour course designed to provide materials to help students deal with career issues, including decision-making exercises, negotiation, creativity and self-improvement. The course is designed to help students learn how to deal with conflict inside the workplace with supervisors, peers and employers.
The course will be taught by James Bloodgood and William Turnley, professors of management in the College of Business Administration. The class will be offered during the January 2013 intersession from Jan. 2-18.
According to Bloodgood, many previous students have gained a lot of knowledge about how to handle themselves in an environment where they have to work closely with others.
“Some of the things [students] remember most are how to handle disputes within a team environment,” Bloodgood said. “They also learn things about themselves.”
The course is based around hands-on activities rather than a lecture because it is designed to help students gain the skill set that future employers will be looking for later in the students’ careers.
“Recruiting companies that come to hire look for different skills,” Bloodgood said. “We always try to improve the course every year.”
According to a Nov. 28 K-State press release, “the hands-on activities in the course reflect the situations students are likely to encounter in the workforce — and how to avoid common career traps and professional blunders.”
Turnley thinks that the course should be designed to be hands-on and applied to material to benefit the students later in their careers.
“It is more focused on practical strategies to achieve career success,” Turnley said. “Most individuals that graduate college have the intellectual ability to be successful.”
Turnley said previous students have told him that they have encountered situations similar to those discussed in the course. Those students said they were glad that they could practice within the safety of a classroom first rather than experiencing it for the first time in a professional setting.
According to Turnley, the class is taught in two modules. He teaches individual career development and Bloodgood teaches strategic issues with companies, such as when to be competitive and cooperative in the workplace.
Turnley thinks that meeting on a daily basis benefits his relationship with students.
“Most of the feedback has been very positive,” Turnley said. “I think we get to know the students very quickly because we are together every day.”