career services
Whether students arrive at Colby with clear vocational goals or not, whether or not they need a graduate degree to achieve their goal, the Office of Career Services is a rich resource, offering information, guidance, and career counseling.
Sure, it offers the basics: help assembling a résumé or writing a cover letter, tips on job interviewing and videotaped mock interviews, and general career planning. But a lot more is available: placement in critical internships, help finding summer jobs and housing to make them possible, graduate school placement services, an extensive alumni network that can help with jobs or grad schools, special help pursuing fellowships and scholarships, even financial assistance for unpaid internships that might be the stepping stone to a career.
With the same friendly and supportive atmosphere characteristic of life at Colby, the Office of Career Services is an easy place to drop by and strike up a conversation, whether you have a pretty good idea of what you want or are overwhelmed by the choices. The professional staff has the resources to take it from the top, starting with "what can I do with my major," or to drill right into your area of interest and help with specific internships, grad school applications, or contacts in the job market.
Colby recognizes that internships are increasingly important to students, both for testing what they may want to do for a career and for gaining an edge when it comes to landing that first job.
Linda K. Cotter Internship Fund
Colby Echo editor Ryan Davis '02 was so impressed with Tom and Pat Gish, winners of the 2001 Lovejoy journalism award, that he asked if he could spend Jan Plan working on their newspaper, The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky. They agreed and invited him to stay at their home. During January Davis had two front-page stories--one on a water shortage that had brought out the National Guard and one on OxyContin addiction in Appalachia. Davis said he wouldn't have been able to take the internship without a scholarship from Colby's Linda K. Cotter Internship Fund. This January the fund helped 18 students take internships from Whitesburg, Ky., to Lahore, Pakistan, at institutions ranging from Barclays Capital on Wall Street to an organic farm in Costa Rica.