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In a recent interview, �鶹ԭ�� President Jack Warner noted that he’d “like �鶹ԭ�� to be known as a school where you can link your academic studies with a career right from day one.”

That means not waiting until senior year or even junior year to visit career services. By then, it’s pretty late. �鶹ԭ�� students need to come through this office as first-year students and every year throughout their four years at �鶹ԭ��.

With that goal in mind, one of the investments �鶹ԭ�� has made is to completely rebrand the office. Not only did the center get a new name – Career & Life Design Center (formerly Career Development Center) –  it got a new director – Thea Cerio.

With a wealth of energy, Cerio is taking the center in an entirely new direction.

When she came on board six months ago, it was a small operation. Since then, Jaclynn Pseekos was hired as assistant director. She is responsible for creating and sustaining partnerships with employers – an extremely important role because employers provide opportunities for student internships, experiential education opportunities, volunteerism and hiring.

Three career specialist positions were also created, two of which have been filled. Career specialists work directly with students to get them career ready. Jeff Pini will be working with students as liaison in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Cindy Polanco will be working as liaison with students in the School of Business.

The career specialist position Cerio is looking to fill will work with the School of Nursing, the School of Social Work and the Feinstein School of Education.

Cerio hails from Dean College, where she was director of the Career Planning & Internships for 10 years.

The term “Life Design,” which is �鶹ԭ��’s new moniker, “is a way of helping students test out their major to see if it’s really what they want to do as a career – if it will truly fulfill their life. 

Testing out a career can take many forms. Perhaps a student will have an informational interview with someone in that career. Maybe it’s shadowing someone for a day. Maybe it’s an internship. Basically, students are getting a perspective from all these experiences before they’re fully committed, she says.

“There are many people who thought they wanted to do a certain job and then got into it and regretted it,” says Cerio. “I was supposed to be a speech pathologist. I did an internship in my senior year and hated it. I wish I had done that internship in my sophomore year. At least then I would have realized that it wasn’t right for me and I would have still had time to change my major.”

Her long-range hope, she says, is to find a way to embed career services into the curriculum for all four years of a student’s tenure.

“If �鶹ԭ�� was in a position to put career services into the classroom, we could make it accessible to all of our students, leveling the playing field for all of them,” she says.

Until then, she is intent on letting the campus know that her office is open for business.

“We’re a start-up,” she says. “We’re an entirely new company, and we’re looking for customers. We’re going to be asking for lots of reviews. We want people to spread the word. What happens this year is going to be pivotal for us.”