Bridging the Gap between the Classroom and the Workplace : A Practical Approach to Career Planning

The Spring 2003 semester and Summer Field Trip marked the instructor's first opportunity to conduct the "Career Planning" course, which was forced to change its content due to the Iraq War. This paper provides an overview of the course. The instructor saw two major problems of students in job-searching : 1) students do not know about the real world ; and 2) students do not know about themselves, what they want to do and what they are fit for. The class spent three meetings in identifying students' individual interests, abilities, themselves, and four meetings in understanding the real-world job market. Nowadays, so-called "mismatching" in employment is a social phenomenon. In order to avoid getting trapped into the wrong job and to help students understand the real world, "Informational Interviewing" was introduced. The students conducted informational interviewing in Japan instead of in Seattle, the original pre-war plan, and made a presentation during summer vacation. The idea of informational interviewing is quite new in Japan, although it has been existed in the U.S. for many years and has been introduced in many job search publications. The students therefore encountered an unexpected obstacle in making appointments with female managers : Japanese companies' closed culture. Two guest speakers and three panelists were invited on three separate occasions to share their experiences. The students showed keen interest in these working professionals, and it was an excellent opportunity to bridge the gap between the classrooms and the real world. Students' feedback, examples of which are provided, confirmed the benefits and necessity of career planning.