Members of the Hamilton College community see tangible development on campus every day, especially, this year, while walking past the future site of the Wellin Museum of Art. Students with an ear to the ground may also witness steady internal rebuilding of campus institutions like the Career Center. This year, Career Center leaders are in the process of planning steps for the Center to become “best in class.” As one of their measures, they hope to expand the role of peer advisors.

I visited the Career Center for the first time towards the end of sophomore year and met with one of the counselors, who helped me realize the importance of getting career related experience during college. It turns out that this was key! Even though my first internship was not very intense or prestigious, it was immeasurably helpful to build upon and it helped me secure my second internship and eventually a full-time job.

Encouraging students to live and work with passion has been a theme of the Career Center this year. The five panelists of the Careers in Entrepreneurship event on Thursday, Sept. 22, epitomize careers based on a balance of passion and smart decision-making. These alumni shared their experiences and advice in a panel discussion sponsored by the Career Center.

Throughout the summer the news page has featured stories about students who were awarded funding from Hamilton to pursue their career interests through research projects with faculty or in internships that were offered without outside compensation. Many other students pursued summer research and internships that were unfunded.  Some are highlighted below. We invite other students to contribute their own stories which we will add to this article as we receive and edit them.

At a liberal arts college, students are encouraged to pursue a diverse variety of subjects, rather than study a single discipline they believe will foster future success. The lack of specialization is often met with the argument, “But what can you do with that?” A panel of Hamilton College alumni assembled on Friday, Sept. 16, to answer this question, showing just what a student can make out of his or her liberal arts education—specifically, a concentration in philosophy. The panel was co-sponsored by the Career Center and the Philosophy Department.

“Live your passion.” It’s a mantra Melissa Kong ’08 has repeated many times—she even uses it as the title of her blog.  On Sept. 3, Kong returned to share her passion with 45 members of the class of 2014 at the inaugural Sophomore JumpStart, a program focused on translating the dreams and passions of the sophomore class into concrete skills and ideas for the working world.

Like many cities, Boston encourages bicycling as an alternative mode of transportation that’s good for one’s health and for the environment.  To help encourage bike-riding cities must implement bike-friendly features such as bike lanes and racks. The Boston Cyclists Union helps make that city conducive to bicycling, and Molly Haughey ’12 was a summer intern there, writing articles for the organization’s newsletter and creating an informational video about the Union.

New York City is known as a bright, loud “city that never sleeps.” Yet despite the glamorous side of the city, poverty-stricken communities such as East Harlem face issues of food scarcity and poor nutrition. Emma Taylor ’13 is spending her summer interning for Nourishing USA, helping to alleviate nutritional problems in some of New York’s poorest communities.

Museums offer the public an immense wealth of shared cultural artifacts in the form of various art mediums, and their employees help ensure that they remain a valued resource for treasured works. Eleanor Gartner ’12 is spending the summer as an intern for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, conducting research on the life and work of former New Yorker magazine art critic Calvin Tomkins. Her research is supported by the Kevin Kennedy Class of '70 Internship Fund for the Arts through the Career Center.