Alumni

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The Alumni Association of The University of Western Ontario is proud to serve and represent more than a quarter million alumni around the world.

We are committed to delivering the finest alumni experience, in keeping with our continued number one ranking as "Canada's best student experience”.

Student Success Centre

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The Student Success Centre is here to help with each step of your journey to a successful future. Our mission is to facilitate the development of career, educational, and life competencies for students and alumni through programs and services that guide successful transitions, foster local and global citizenship, promote leadership opportunities, encourage personal growth, deliver career resources, and ignite active engagement.

Description

American Studies

Welcome to the Centre for American Studies at Western University. The Centre was established in 1984 to promote a greater understanding of the culture, history, and politics of the United States. The Centre offers a wide range of courses in American Studies and strongly encourages research that is interdisciplinary in nature. We have 44 associates drawn from Anthropology, English, Film Studies, First Nations Studies, History, Information and Media Studies, Law, Music, Political Science, and Women's Studies. In 2005 the Centre launched an interdisciplinary undergraduate program, and in 2010 became the first university in Canada to offer a Master of Arts program in American Studies.

The Centre operates to disseminate information regarding American Studies across the University and serves as a liaison with the educational outreach services of the United States Consulate. With the assistance of the Centre for American Studies, UWO faculty have travelled, attended conferences, and studied in the United States. The Centre also advises students considering graduate study in the United States. Institutional memberships are maintained in the American Studies Association and the Canadian Association for American Studies. In 2006 an Advisory Council was established to provide strategic advice and guidance for the future of the Centre.

Skills

Discipline specific knowledge is only one of the many benefits of pursuing an undergraduate degree. However, this knowledge alone is not enough to prepare you for entering the world of work. You will discover that the content of your degree does not restrict your job opportunities.

Being aware of the transferable skills you've developed throughout your studies will better prepare you for entering the job market and allow you to articulate the skills that are so valued by employers.

Knowledge Skills

  • A knowledge of America's history, an understanding of its politics and an insight into its literature, not to mention a host of other topics such as the constitution, culture, society, the various ethnic groups that live there and US foreign policy

Communication Skills

  • Writing and oral presentation. In your written work, supervisions and seminar presentations you might experiment with different styles and formats appropriate to different kinds of audience

Management Skills

  • Skills enabling you to work effectively as part of a team by identifying your role and contributing, through leading, teaching, motivating and/or encouraging others, to the success of the team

Research Skills

  • Knowledge of research methodologies in American history and capacity to interpret findings


For a more complete list of transferable skills click here.


Introduction

Did you know that there are over 2 million job titles and over 900 industries in Canada? That is a lot of possible career options! Understanding the Canadian economy and the types of jobs that are available is one of the best ways to begin your career search.

Students often report feeling limited by their degree choice and worry that they may not have many viable career options. Although your degree can point you in a career direction, it will not necessarily determine the type of job you can pursue. Unlike many college programs, your undergraduate degree is not intended to train you for one specific job. Some students may feel frustrated by this, but the great news is that your degree opens up many more opportunities than you may think!

Employers today are looking for graduates with transferable skills and people who have a sense of where they fit into the world of work. Because of this, it is really important to think beyond your degree when making a career decision. You want to consider all of your interests, the skills you would like to use, what fits with your personality, and the values that you have.

Determining your career path requires a lot of research, both personal and occupational. It's almost impossible to make a career decision if you haven't invested time in both of these things. This section will get you started and will showcase some popular industries and occupational areas related to your degree.

Educational Services

The Educational Services sector comprises establishments that provide instruction and training in a wide variety of subjects. This instruction and training is provided by specialized establishments, such as schools, colleges, universities, and training centers. These establishments may be privately owned and operated for profit or not for profit, or they may be publicly owned and operated. They may also offer food and/or accommodation services to their students.

Educational services are usually delivered by teachers or instructors that explain, tell, demonstrate, supervise, and direct learning. Instruction is imparted in diverse settings, such as educational institutions, the workplace, or the home, and through diverse means, such as correspondence, television, the Internet, or other electronic and distance-learning methods.

Sample Job Titles:

Archivist

Career and Technical Education Teacher

High School Teacher

Instructional Coordinator

Instructor

Librarian

Postsecondary Teacher

Preschool Teacher

Supply Teacher

Marketing

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers. Marketing might sometimes be interpreted as the art of selling products, but sales is only one part of marketing. As the term "Marketing" may replace "Advertising" it is the overall strategy and function of promoting a product or service to the customer.

From a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society’s material requirements and its economic patterns of response. Marketing satisfies these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long term relationships. The process of communicating the value of a product or service through positioning to customers. Marketing can be looked at as an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, delivering and communicating value to customers, and managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its shareholders.

Sample Job Titles:

Advertising Analyst

Advertising Manager

Commerce Officer

E-commerce Manager

Market Research Analysts

Marketing Manager

Media & Communication

Media and communications is a collection of companies involved in telecommunications equipment and services, television and radio broadcasting, motion picture/video production, and publishing. The media and communications industry makes the world a smaller place by entertaining, informing, and connecting people around the world.

The Media and Communications industry is Highly Concentrated. The production in this industry is dominated by a small amount of large firms that are able to shape the industry’s direction and price levels.

Sample Job Titles:

Announcer

Broadcast News Analyst

Copywriter

Correspondent

Interpreter

Novelist

Reporter

Technical Writer

Translator

Museum and Institution

Museum is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary.

Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. The continuing acceleration in the digitization of information, combined with the increasing capacity of digital information storage, is causing the traditional model of museums (i.e. as static “collections of collections” of three-dimensional specimens and artifacts) to expand to include virtual exhibits and high-resolution images of their collections for perusal, study, and exploration from any place with Internet.

Sample Job Titles:

Archaeological Consultant

Archaeologist

Gallery Conservator

Museum Curator

Museum Technicians

Photograph Conservator

Public Relations

Public relations is the practice of getting attention and shaping public opinion. Its tools include publicity, advertising, public affairs forums, lobbying public officials, and any and every other means that gets a message out to the public. Mostly however it is about placing stories in the media, getting newspapers, radio and television to accept stories or messages sourced from PR agencies.

Every organisation that interacts with other agencies may be said to engage in public relations. Organisations by and large wish to project as good an image as they can, and often wish to communicate a particular message.

Sample Job Titles:

Information Officer

Media Relations Co-ordinator

Public Relations Specialists

Publicist

Travel Agents

Travel Consultant

Publishing

Publishing is made up of a diverse group of industries including: Books, Directories and Mailing Lists, Journals, Magazines and Business Media, Newspapers, News Agencies and other Information Services.

From the printed word to online, the occupations and roles involved are many and varied. Whether a journalist, commissioning editor, designer or an advertising executive, multimedia formats mean the industry is at an exciting time and subject to rapid change.

Sample Job Titles:

Associate Editor

Broadcast News Analyst

Columnist

Commentator

Correspondent

Editor

Journal Editor

Journalist

Reporter

Other Industries

This section has highlighted a number of popular industries and job titles that align with your academic program; however, it was by no means an exhaustive list of all the possible options available to you with the degree you possess. Access the resources below to learn about other industries and job titles that are a fit for you.

Canadian Industries: Browse through over 900 Canadian Industries.

LinkedIn: Search through thousands of Western Alumni by degree.

National Occupational Classification (NOC): The national reference on occupations - organizes over 40,000 job titles.

Informational Interviews: Find out about jobs and career paths you never knew existed.

CareerCruising: Peruse career & further educational options (visit the "Resources" section of CareerCentral for the username & password).

Working in Canada: The leading source for labour market information in Canada.

US Occupational Outlook Handbook: Browse hundreds of occupational profiles.

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