Beyond OSU

Beyond OSU I: Prepare Learning Outcomes

Students in Beyond OSU I will:

• Illustrate how their OSU and related experiences connect to career readiness and career advancement skills.*
• Apply life-long career development concepts through the creation of career relevant artifacts.*

Beyond OSU I: Prepare Criteria

Courses in Beyond OSU I will:

1. Be at a minimum a non-credit requirement that students take to complement for-credit courses. Transcript visible non-credit requirements help to round out a student’s education to demonstrate career readiness and career advancement skills*. Colleges and programs with for-credit courses that meet the criteria and learning outcomes are eligible to have their specific course fulfill this category. Those credits count toward the 180 credits needed to graduate.
2. Demonstrate, as a non-credit course, that students have spent 7-10 hours to complete this requirement, whereas a for-credit requirement institutionally must meet 30 contact hours per credit.
3. Beyond courses are meant to be taken in the order of Transitions, Beyond OSU I, and Beyond OSU II, to create multiple career touchpoints for students. Beyond OSU courses are not to be taken out of order. In some cases, it may be pedagogically appropriate to take adjacent courses, such as Transitions and Beyond I, or Beyond I and Beyond II, at the same time as co-requisites, but never all three at the same time.
4. The learning outcomes for Beyond OSU I and Beyond OSU II may be combined in a single for-credit course. A combined Beyond OSU I and II course must be taken after Transitions has been completed (Transitions must be a pre-requisite).
5. Require students to create artifacts related to the students’ career goals and interests. These can include resume/CV, cover letter, LinkedIn profiles, personal statements, portfolios, or teaching philosophy.
6. Emphasize the NACE Career Competencies and how students are building these through coursework, research, clubs, student employment, experiential learning, and other life experiences.
7. Emphasize educating students on career development concepts* related to students’ career goals.

Rationale

Student surveys suggest that nearly all students list career-related goals as a primary reason they come to college. The Beyond OSU requirement is intended to incorporate career development into the curriculum, thereby ensuring that every student has the skills and knowledge needed to find meaningful work in their field or advance in their current career after completing their academic journey at OSU. The focus of Beyond OSU will be on career preparation activities that prepare students for their post-graduation goals. Beyond OSU will also help students connect their experiences to the career readiness and career advancement skills both employers and universities have deemed necessary to succeed in the working world: the NACE competencies.

Beyond OSU is a minimum non-credit requirement, meaning students are not paying additional money to enroll in a course or to take credits to receive education and support the university deems critical to student success. Non-credit requirements are not meant to be a check box or add a burden to students, rather they are ensuring all students get to plan for their future and economic advancement. Beyond OSU I emphasizes educating students on career development concepts related to students’ career goals. Beyond OSU II requires students to gain insights through participating in experiences and apply those concepts to their future goals.

Beyond OSU II: Engage Learning Outcomes

Students in Beyond OSU II will:

• Apply career development concepts to relevant artifacts* from engagement in a career related experience or activity.

Beyond OSU II: Engage Criteria

Courses in Beyond OSU II will:

1. Be at a minimum a non-credit requirement that students take to complement for-credit courses. Transcript visible non-credit requirements help to round out a student’s education to demonstrate career readiness or advancement skills. Colleges and programs with for-credit courses that meet the criteria and learning outcomes are eligible to have their specific course fulfill this category. Those credits count toward the 180 credits needed to graduate.
2. Demonstrate, as a non-credit course, that students have spent 7-10 hours to complete this requirement, whereas a for-credit requirement institutionally must meet 30 contact hours per credit.
3. Beyond courses are meant to be taken in the order of Transitions, Beyond OSU I, and Beyond OSU II, to create multiple career touchpoints for students. Beyond OSU courses are not to be taken out of order. In some cases, it may be pedagogically appropriate to take adjacent courses, such as Transitions and Beyond I, or Beyond I and Beyond II, at the same time as co-requisites, but never all three at the same time.
4. The learning outcomes for Beyond OSU I and Beyond OSU II may be combined in a single for-credit course. A combined Beyond OSU I and II course must be taken after Transitions has been completed (Transitions must be a pre-requisite).
5. Require students to gain insights through participating in experiences that can include but are not limited to: site visits, career fairs, job shadowing, informational interviews, internships, undergraduate research, alternative spring break, or other experiential learning opportunities, capstone experiences.
6. Provide students the opportunity to reflect on career focused experiences either by connecting their experiences inside and outside the classroom to the NACE competencies and their future goals or by updating their career artifacts based on their experiences in Beyond OSU.

Rationale

Student surveys suggest that nearly all students list career-related goals as a primary reason they come to college. The Beyond OSU requirement is intended to incorporate career development into the curriculum, thereby ensuring that every student has the skills and knowledge needed to find meaningful work in their field or advance in their current career after completing their academic journey at OSU. The focus of Beyond OSU will be on career preparation activities that prepare students for their post-graduation goals. Beyond OSU will also help students connect their experiences to the career readiness and career advancement skills both employers and universities have deemed necessary to succeed in the working world: the NACE competencies.

Beyond OSU is a minimum non-credit requirement, meaning students are not paying additional money to enroll in a course or to take credits to receive education and support the university deems critical to student success. Non-credit requirements are not meant to be a check box or add a burden to students, rather they are ensuring all students get to plan for their future and economic advancement. Beyond OSU I emphasizes educating students on career development concepts related to students’ career goals. Beyond OSU II requires students to gain insights through participating in experiences and apply those concepts to their future goals.

Career readiness and advancement skills: Career readiness and career advancement is a foundation from which to demonstrate requisite core competencies that broadly prepare the college educated for success in the workplace and lifelong career management. These skills are based on the National Association of College Employers (NACE) Career Competencies, whose website also includes sample behaviors that can be used for assessment of the competencies.

• Career & Self-Development - Proactively develop oneself and one’s career through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities, and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization.
• Communication - Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization.
• Critical Thinking - Identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.
• Equity & Inclusion - Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures. Engage in anti-racist practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism.
• Leadership - Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.
• Professionalism - Knowing work environments differ greatly, understand and demonstrate effective work habits, and act in the interest of the larger community and workplace.
• Teamwork - Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities.
• Technology - Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals.

Career development concepts are areas of life-long learning related to career and professional development. They can include but are not limited to: understanding one’s own strengths and interests, understanding and planning for future educational pursuits; articulating how one’s experiences, skills, interests and values relate to future educational and career goals; identifying relevant tools in the job or graduate school search; navigating the job or graduate search process; activating support networks, including requesting references, seeking mentorship, and building connections in a target industry; building a professional online presence; and understanding and applying interview and informational interview skills.

Career relevant artifacts are documents students create in the pursuit of their professional goals. They can include but are not limited to: graduate school personal statements; curriculum vitaes; content for graduate school applications; portfolios; teaching philosophies; resumes; cover letters; LinkedIn Profiles; support network maps; and reflections on career goals, mock interviews, informational interviews, or job shadowing. 

Career-related experiences or activities are hands-on learning opportunities that provide students with the opportunity to reflect on their career artifacts and make relevant changes. They can include but are not limited to: site visits, career fairs, career workshops, job shadowing, student employment, internships, experiential learning, research, capstones, mock interviews, informational interviews.

About:

Beyond OSU is a minimum non-credit requirement, meaning students are not paying additional money to enroll in a course or to take credits to receive education and support the university deems critical to student success. Non-credit requirements are not meant to be a check box or add a burden to students, rather they are ensuring all students get to plan for their future and economic advancement. Beyond OSU I emphasizes educating students on career development concepts related to students’ career goals. Beyond OSU II requires students to gain insights through participating in experiences and apply those concepts to their future goals.

Some programs across OSU are redesigning courses and embedding the Beyond OSU I and II learning outcomes into coursework students take within their major requirements. This approach aligns with the spirit of a non-credit option as students are not taking additional coursework to complete the Beyond OSU requirements. Rather, programs are intentionally adapting current coursework to better articulate the skills, competencies, and knowledge related to career readiness within the context of the majors students are pursuing. 

Beyond OSU non-credit courses:

OSU has non-credit courses that also will also complete the Beyond OSU I and II requirements. Programs utilizing non-credit options will design a non-credit course will embedding learning outcomes and assessment of student learning in their non-credit course. Beyond OSU non-credit courses are offered at two levels: 

• 007 - Beyond OSU I Engage is available for any course designator to create a non-credit Beyond OSU I course. Course title is BO I: (Topic inserted at the section level)- because designator describes the unit.
• 008 - Beyond OSU II Prepare is available for any course designator to create a non-credit Beyond OSU II course. Course title is BO II: (Topic inserted at the section level)- because designator describes the unit.

If you are interested in a non-credit option for your academic program, please contact Curriculum Management. 

Courses in Core Education must be regularly numbered. Blanket-numbered courses, such as 401-410, cannot be submitted to a category in Core Education. Units must select alternative course numbers so that the blanket numbers are reserved for use as traditional blanket experiences.

Please contact Curriculum Management to identify a course number that can be used to serve as an internship or research Beyond OSU I/II-based course. 

Career relevant artifacts are documents or pieces of work students create in the pursuit of their professional goals.  They are used to demonstrate skills, knowledge and achievements. They can include but are not limited to:

• Graduate school personal statements
• Content for graduate school applications
• Resume/Curriculum vitae
• Cover letters
• Portfolios in a career area (art, design, performance, creative writing/journalism, analytics, video, programming)
• Teaching philosophies
• LinkedIn profiles
• Support network maps
• Reflections on: career goals, mock interviews, informational interviews, and job shadowing

Career-related experiences or activities are hands-on learning opportunities that provide students with the space to reflect on their career artifacts and concepts, while progressing their career readiness and advancement. They can include but are not limited to:

• Site visits
• Career fairs
• Career workshops,
• Job shadowing
•  Internships
• Experiential learning
•  Research
•  Capstones
•  Mock interviews
• Informational interviews

Direct professional engagement should be your criteria to use when determining if something can be considered an experience. Ask yourself: does it engage students in a professional setting that requires in-depth interaction, interpersonal communication, or direct hands-on career practice?

Consider how you can implement this for both in-person and Ecampus students. This may be engaging in an upcoming OSU Career Fair or Virtual Career Fair, performing mock interviews or informational interviews with alumni (in person, via Zoom, or over the phone), or providing workplace visits to businesses near campus or a student's home area.

You can also partner with the Career Development Center (CDC) by utilizing their career workshops and fairs that occur each term. For example, assign attending a career fair as a student experience (or a Getting a Dam Job Workshop as part of an artifact assignment). Then students can complete a reflection on the experience or directly create/edit the artifact from the skills and knowledge  provided by the CDC at the workshop.

Fairs and workshops can be accessed in-person or virtually. Please fill out the CDC’s Support Request Form to collaborate with them.

Classroom activities and assignments: The Career Development Center has also created a suite of career assignments for faculty to utilize in their courses. The pdf assignments are plug and play. Feel free to download and use them as is. If you’d liked to adapt the assignments to better fit your courses, the CDC also provides editable Word files. (The pdfs can also be edited, but this requires proficiency in Acrobat.) 

National Association of Collegiate Employers (NACE) Career Competencies

•  Career and Self Development 

  Proactively develop oneself and one’s career through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities, and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization.

• Communication 

  Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization.

• Critical Thinking 

  Identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.

• Equity and Inclusion 

  Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different cultures and backgrounds. Engage in anti-oppressive practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism and inequity.

• Leadership 

  Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.

• Professionalism 

  Knowing work environments differ greatly, understand and demonstrate effective work habits, and act in the interest of the larger community and workplace.

• Teamwork 

  Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities.

• Technology 

  Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals.