From First Year to First Career

Mitzy Rodriguez Camiro, a career coach, speaks with a student — Coaches, like Mitzy Rodriguez Camiro, assistant director for internship programs (pictured), will start and guide intentional conversations about career paths and possibilities.

A new Whitman College program pairs incoming first-years with their own career coaches.

It’s never too soon for today’s college students to start thinking about the career they want—whether they arrive on campus with a profession in mind or hope to explore several fields.

Whitman College’s Student Engagement Center (SEC) has launched a new program that will pair each incoming first-year student—beginning with the Class of 2025—with a career coach for intentional conversations about their future.

“It is our goal with this program to start those conversations early in order to assist all students in accessing opportunities and resources that will prepare them for their best life after Whitman,” says Kimberly Rolfe, director for career development. “We believe this program will help students understand the wide variety of professional growth and learning happening while they are students
at Whitman: research with faculty, community involvement, internships and student jobs, classroom projects, and building relationships with professors and peers.”

Through the program, students will work with a career coach for the duration of their time at Whitman. The coaching program is customized for each student, whether they already know
exactly what they want to do after they graduate or haven’t yet considered any options, according to Rolfe.

“Our coaches will offer mentorship in debriefing and reflection as a student engages with activities, experiences and information that explore career trajectories; eliminating the
myth that career development must begin with a defined career path,” she says.