Nestled in the Sandhills of North Carolina is a not small yet not large university.  It’s not young as it started over 130 years ago but it’s not old in terms of its facilities.  It’s certainly out of town surrounded by farms and open pastureland, but not too far, just 45 minutes south of Raleigh.  Its population is small enough to fit inside Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium twice, yet also houses graduate schools in medicine, education, engineering, divinity, and law.  Campbell University is a striking contrast to what people might think of as a typical private undergraduate school.  Yet 5,000 students call it home every year and roughly 800 of them move on every graduation. All the time in between, Dr. Yasmine Farley, Career Services Director, steps in to help those students discern what kinds of careers they want to pursue. 

GUEST BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Yasmine Farley is currently the Director of Career Services at Campbell University. With over 10 years of experience at public and private colleges and universities, Dr. Farley has dedicated her career to assisting the students she works within their career journey. Dr. Farley completed her Ph.D. at Old Dominion University where her studies focused on career and identity development. She is devoted to empowering her students to pursue their passion and find the right path to achieve their goals.

SHOW NOTES

2:37 – What kind of student do you see on campus at Campbell University?

3:49 – How does the Campbell student differ from your experience at previous institutions?

5:31 – Ideally, how do you like to interact with students from the time they get on campus to the time they graduate?

8:04 – How much time (per month, per semester) should a student devote towards enhancing their chances of getting to where they want to go after graduation?

9:31 – How do you go about helping a student figure out where they want to go in life if they have no idea when they first enter your office?

11:43 – What is it you are trying to extract from the student in that interview process that enables you to help them find a direction in life?

13:15 – Does Campbell’s rural campus impact students in terms of career and if so, how?

17:25 – What assessments do you use and how do you use them?

19:50 – How well do the assessments perform in the eyes of the student in terms of how well they can identify with the student’s interests and strengths?

21:19 – How much do you lean on assessments versus the organic conversations you have with students one-on-one?

22:27 – If a student was bent on one specific career, would you solely help them get to that career or would you give them other options to think about?

24:21 – Helping students going to the divinity school in answering a “calling” versus going into a more professional line of work?

26:43 – What do you tell students that have very specific and lofty (some might say “unrealistic”) career ideas?

29:02 – Do you find that when the Campbell freshman arrives on campus that they have an idea of what they want to do that is genuine or do you feel like you have to re-evaluate their ideas to make sure they are doing what they want to do?

30:36 – How do you counsel or coach students who are thinking about going to grad school – be it at Campbell or somewhere else?