Senior Year

Year Four

• Review your self-assessment (or undertake the process if you haven't yet), to remind yourself what your skills, interests, and values are. This will help you write your resume and sell your strengths to employers in interviews.
   
• Complete the course requirements in your major field and other graduation requirements.
   
• Plan a specific internship in your chosen field if you haven't done one yet. Oglethorpe's internship program allows you to earn academic credit for your internship. The first step is to attend an Internship Orientation the semester prior to your internship. It takes about 2 months to find an internship site, so plan your search accordingly. Internship listings are available in the Career Library in Emerson Student Center and online at E-Recruiting database. The deadline to register for an internship for credit is the drop/add date of the semester for which you wish to register. To earn credit for an internship, you must have a faculty supervisor who will assign at least a 10 page paper and journal entries. You will also have to work 30 hours on site for every hour of academic credit (4 hour of credit = 120 hours on site, or about 10 hours per week). Remember, if you get credit for an internship, you have to pay tuition for those credit hours, just like any other class. Internships are graded pass/fail. More information on internships
   
• Attend workshops offered by Career Services on resumes, cover letters, and interviewing. Visit the Career Services calendar of events
   
• Plan and conduct a thorough job campaign. The average job search lasts 2 to 4 months, so if you hope to have a job at graduation, start in January. Visit Career Services for advice. More information on Job Searching
   
• Take interviews on campus and arrange appropriate interviews off campus. On-campus interviews are managed through InterviewTRAK, a section of MonsterTRAK.com. See Career Services for more information.
   
• Discuss opportunities with faculty, advisors, counselors and Career Services Director.
   
• Choose the faculty and administrators you want for reference purposes. Ask these people if they will serve as a positive reference for you.
   
• Attend the Career Opportunities Fair in the fall and the CONNECTIONS Career Fair on campus in the spring to find potential job opportunities.
   
• In the fall semester, apply to graduate or professional schools for admission the following fall.
   
• If you plan to attend graduate school immediately after college, practice for and take the appropriate entrance exam for your field. The Academic Resource Center offers workshops on the major graduate entrance exams. Because graduate school admission deadlines are usually November through February, depending on the school and program, you should plan to take the entrance exam for your discipline no later than October of your senior year. Only the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) General Tests are given "on demand"; ALL others are given only a few
  times per year; registration deadlines are several months prior to the test date. Research the graduate programs you are considering and make note of which entrance exam is required.
   
• Generally, the follow exams are required for the corresponding degrees:
  LSAT- Law school
  MCAT- Medical school (allopathic, osteopathic
  and podiatric)
  GMAT- MBA Program
  GRE -M.A., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in academic fields
  (some schools also require subject test in your discipline)
  More information on Graduate Schools

 Adapted from The Blue Chip Graduate and Boston University's career blueprint.