Major To Career Success: Support from Career and Advising Services

Olga Salinas: Welcome to the club. 

Kelsey Nelson: Check your emails. These are all going to your emails. I send them out; Career Services sends them out, faculty members. 

Olga Salinas: That’s fantastic. That is amazing. 

Kelsey Nelson: I cannot emphasize enough the importance of being resourceful. Asking for help. We’re not trying to keep this information from you. 

Sam Butler: Welcome back to BroncoTales, season two, episode four, with the College of Health Science. Today, I’m joined by Kelsey Nelson and Olga Salinas. Thank you for coming in. Do you want to introduce yourselves to start off? 

Kelsey Nelson: Sure, I’ll go first. My name is Kelsey Nelson. I wear a few different hats at the university. So, I work for Boise State Career Services, where one of my responsibilities is to be a liaison to the College of Health Sciences, where I get to work with Olga’s team quite a bit. I am also an internship coordinator for the School of Public and Population Health. 

Olga Salinas: Okay, yeah. My name is Olga Salinas. I’m the Assistant Director of Student Services and Academic Advising. We are really the office that does the whole onboarding for students as they come to Boise State University, and helps them move from that, how do you get that degree completion, right? How do you go from here to there? That’s our role. One more thing I needed to add to that, and working with Kelsey, we also help students move into that professional transition, right, from the undergraduate into what their career objectives are. 

Sam Butler: So perfect. 

Olga Salinas: Yes. Thank you for telling me that, though. 

Sam Butler: Yeah. Perfect transition. I have our first question. Some advice for students who are juniors and seniors about to graduate. Well, let’s start with high school. The best way to make a seamless transition going–not necessarily to Boise State, but in general. What should they be doing before graduating? Dates to pay attention to anything like that. 

Olga Salinas: This is such a great question about going to any institution. So, many of our students now have college work completed while they were in high school. And what is really important about that is wherever you decide to go to continue your academic career, if you do not submit those transcripts from every institution–notice what I said, every institution where you earned that credit. You are making it extremely difficult for that next institution to prepare you or advise you correctly for the next steps in your academic career. That’s coursework that you’ve taken, you’ve earned credit for, you might end up taking it again if you don’t get that work in.

That is the most critical step. I get questions all the time. Well, my high school counselor–I thought they were going to send it. It’s on you. You need to know the schools that you attended. You need to submit that work. I know that sounds like a really basic thing, but it is critical to your success when you onboard at any other institution. 

Sam Butler: Meaning AP credit, community college, other community colleges, and anything like that. 

Olga Salinas: Anything like that, you might have attended a four-year institution and received college credit as well. Yeah, absolutely. We need to see them all. They need to be official transcripts. They need to be submitted. 

Sam Butler: And off the top of your head, I know each school’s different. But any dates to pay attention to, not necessarily the specific day, but kind of the deadline you have to meet for those things, and some of the other things. 

Olga Salinas: Sooner the better. Even if you have transcripts in progress, it is better to get them all in and then submit a final transcript when those grades are posted. It really does help your advising team when you’re on board. In terms of dates, like you just said, those will vary. For Boise State, it really kind of hinges on when you have submitted your intent to enroll and selected your orientation date. For other institutions, it might differ. So, the next key thing I would say is I know you get a lot of emails as students, but you’ve got to read the emails from the institutions that you’ve applied to. You have to. There are steps that they are asking you to complete. They are giving you deadline dates, and it’s critical that you’re paying attention to those. 

Sam Butler: And assuming you get everything into that five or six years later, you’ll be a senior or junior here. Do you have any advice to help with a seamless transition after graduating from a university? 

Kelsey Nelson: Yeah, oh my goodness. I have a few pieces of advice. The first one, I think, also applies to high school students. When you get to a university, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of being resourceful. Asking for help, I think Olga’s team, as well as my team in Career Services, can attest that we get a lot of the same emails pretty consistently. And so we really work hard to get that information out there so students don’t feel like they have to email. Yes, please always ask for help. And at the same time, we’re not trying to keep this information from you. So check on websites for those institutions. Olga’s team has a wonderful website with resources, same with Career Services. So I think just being resourceful from the beginning, I think, is really helpful.

And when you’re getting ready to graduate, I think this idea of a seamless transition, although wonderful to aspire to, I feel like everybody has hiccups, right? Whether they be hiccups or even just thinking, let’s say you have a job lined up, and let’s say you have everything, and on paper, everything looks great. You’re still making a big…scheduling transition. There are a lot of little things that come in that can still be jarring.

So, I think being resourceful, asking for help, knowing your resources, and then also giving yourself some patience and understanding can really go a long way because I know in Career Services, at least, we don’t hear people having perfect transitions all the time, right? I feel like you assume that those things happen, and maybe those are the things that you hear about. Maybe you hear about those people getting into medical school the first time or getting a job right away, but really, I would say the norm is people trying to understand what that path is for them. So having a little patience for yourself can really go a long way. 

Olga Salinas: Absolutely. I’m thinking–I tell my students, this is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. Life’s not Instagram, it’s a long journey, right? And I’m so glad you mentioned that because roughly–what the average age for somebody, let’s say, going on to a physician associate is 27. So, give yourself that grace you were talking about, give yourself that time so that you can do it well, right? There’s no fast track to this. There’s really–there’s a lot of steps along the way if you want to do them well.

Kelsey Nelson: And it’s–I would say, unreasonable to think that–let’s say you graduated at 22 years old, that you are going to be the same person throughout your life and your career. And really, what our offices in Boise State and so many faculty, staff try to help students do is have the tools and strategies to navigate those ups and downs, right? Because the world is constantly changing from a career lens. I mean, there are so many jobs that exist that did not exist one, two, three, ten years ago. And so it’s less about finding the perfect next step for you and more about getting equipped to navigate those ups and downs as they come. 

Olga Salinas: Absolutely. 

Sam Butler: Yeah, one that actually applies to me. I’m in a pre-pathway. What does a pre-pathway consist of? And how do they work to kind of help guide you to that next step? 

Kelsey Nelson: Good question. Olga from an academic standpoint. 

Olga Salinas: Sometimes students have this vision when they start, like, I’m going to go to med school, and therefore I have to be a specific–I have to be chem, or I have to be bio. And that’s just really not the case. Getting into these institutions of the next level, that graduate level education, is a big picture you’re putting together that you’re presenting to that institution as to whether or not you’re going to be a good candidate for them.

So, we call it the pre-pathway, because you are identifying that, yes, this is the track you’re kind of going to, but it’s not a degree in and of itself. Pre-med is not a degree. You wouldn’t want a pre-med degree. You might have changed your mind, as a matter of fact–what Kelsey was talking about, when you get to the end, and then you go, maybe not, or some other opportunity opens itself up, and you go, that’s exciting, I want to go do that.

So, what those pathways are designed to do, yes, you finish a degree in whatever field you’re passionate about, and we have built into that the prereqs–the academic prereqs that you’re going to need to continue. As well as the additional things that you’re presenting. What is your work experience like? Do you have clinical experience? A lot of schools are requiring that now. Are you prepared for the MCAT? What have you done in terms of volunteer services? How do you present yourself in your strongest light? Putting all those pieces together, doing the research on the schools, that all happens in that pre-pathway. 

Sam Butler: Yeah, well said. Kelsey, do you have anything to add?  

Kelsey Nelson: Not really, I think Olga really captured that well. 

Olga Salinas: And we do it together with career services. There are a lot of things that we do, like we’ve got many medical interviews that are coming up. We do a lot of work in making sure that you understand your curriculum with your academic advising report. When you’re on your campus, that is a critical tool for understanding your degree completion.

We do a lot in terms of graduate schools coming to visit with our students. We’ve got a whole–and Derek will be talking about that. Marketing will be talking about that in the future. We’re talking a whole Medical March Madness of events that are going on. And we love students to participate. You need to demonstrate beyond the grades. Everybody has to have the grades. And everybody has to have a good GRE, MCAT, CASPER, PCAT, and whatever it might be that you’re doing. So beyond that. We call it beyond the classroom. 

Sam Butler: And can you go into the interviews just for a little second, the ones that you guys put on? 

Olga Salinas: Yeah, Kelsey’s gonna be helping us with that. We help our students practice that. It is nerve-wracking to walk into a room, get asked a very in-depth kind of question that really requires some thought. 

Sam Butler: And this is for medical school?

Kelsey Nelson: It’s called a mini medical interview, where basically you go into a room, and you are given a prompt. You have a designated amount of time to respond to that prompt. Sometimes there’s a role play. But to Olga’s point, it can just be a jarring experience if you’ve never experienced it. And to be honest, oftentimes a lot of the questions are interview questions that can be asked in a standard interview or a panel interview. But oftentimes, the format that it’s conducted in can be a lot for students. And, so career services and academic advising are partnering to help demonstrate that for students to practice that. 

Olga Salinas: Sometimes they’re virtual, so you have to learn how to maneuver that, moving from room to room virtually, and all those opportunities to practice… make for a much stronger presentation when you actually go to do it for real. 

Kelsey Nelson: Yeah, I feel like especially people often think, whether it be in their interview or on personal statements or whatever it is, applying for these types of schools, people think, okay, what do I need to do to stand out? Or how do I fit in with what they want? When really, it sounds so cheesy to say this, but it’s true. What makes an applicant stand out is being able to articulate their experiences and how they connect with a profession and a program.

So, that’s why these events–things in the Medical March Madness, those are things just to help you kind of embrace that mindset and practice that. So, when you go into the application process, the interview process, and whatever it may be, you have–I would say mindset, this may be a bit more sustainable, right? One that really focuses on what you can bring to an institution, bring to a profession, and not you being assessed as–I don’t know, as strongly as you may feel you are. 

Sam Butler: And kind of going back to maybe not getting in the first time, along with that, like our programs–like our nursing program here, what do you tell students that are, one, applying and two, either they come to you and haven’t gotten in the first time or are worried they aren’t and kind of what else to prepare for? 

Olga Salinas: That is such a deep question. In all honesty, it truly is. It seems like on the surface it should be really simple, right? But it’s not. Because sometimes students arrive on campus hours, let’s say, and they’re foreclosed. What that means is they have already identified a path without doing a whole lot of research on it. They’ve just kind of decided that’s what I’m gonna do. And you start speaking with them, getting to know them, and they have limited their vision.

And I’m like, this whole, you being here, it should be about expanding your vision of the possibilities. So definitely, if a student has done the research and they’ve done the work, and they’ve maybe even had some experience in the field, and they know they want it to be, you specifically mentioned nursing, let’s say. They’ve done it, they’ve done the work, and they know that it is. I’m like, okay, then definitely we’re gonna help you, try to get you there, and know that there are many avenues to getting to the field of nursing, as there are people.

So, if you do not make it the first time, are we applying a second time? Great. Are we going to finish something like a health studies degree and then apply to an accelerated nursing program? Great. Are you really kind of maybe taking a look now, though, at the possibility of–we’ve got one of the best respiratory care programs in the nation? We have an amazing radiologic sciences. Are you thinking about maybe a different clinical career? Is that an option? And really, can we explore that? Are you applying to more than one school of nursing? So, expanding your vision of your possibilities makes your success all the more likely. 

Kelsey Nelson: And it’s challenging. And I feel like people often hear about the people who get in the first time. They know somebody who’s gotten into the nursing program the first time or somebody who has gotten into medical school, the first cycle. Those are just the things that you hear about, and it’s common to have hiccups on the path, right? People often think it’s linear getting to a career path or graduating, when really, to use another cheesy metaphor. It’s like a roller coaster at the world’s best amusement park. They’re ups, and there are downs, and they’re so common, right? And, the intensity of those ups and downs is going to vary from each person and each phase of your life.

At the same time, if I could just help to normalize that for everyone. Just because–most likely listeners are under a lot of pressure, whether it be pressure they put on themselves or maybe friends and family that are supporting them on their journey to graduation, and just at the end of the day, it’s–I don’t know, I just, I just go back to people giving themselves more patience and understanding. 

Olga Salinas: I wish we had reversed it. And we thought of it more like people who get in the first time, that’s the fluke. Right? 

Kelsey Nelson: Yes.

Olga Salinas: That’s the unusual thing. That’s not–what you talked about, normalizing it–that is not the norm. The nice thing about some programs is that you can apply more than once a year. The nice thing about being in something like the College of Health Sciences is that so many of the courses just translate into a different path, really easily. So, you can shift. And, that’s a true benefit, right? The programs that we offer are really tied very much to professions. So, I mean, what you’re talking about, giving yourself some grace, give yourself that grace to explore, give yourself the opportunity to find something that you are really going to enjoy.

Kelsey Nelson: And that’s what’s normal. 

Olga Salinas: That’s normal. 

Kelsey Nelson: That is completely normal. When people come into career services, that’s what we talk about and how you can explore. And it’s not that we’re trying to steer people away from a path, but we want them to be able to know and identify where they’re connected to a certain career, or maybe help them explore opportunities to learn more about themselves as it fits into that future profession. And once, in my opinion, you open yourself up a little bit to learn more about yourself. That just makes it so much easier. From my experience, students tend to feel a bit more empowered at that point when they know it’s less about getting to a specific outcome and more about learning about themselves. I just–it can be really empowering. 

Olga Salinas: Right. 

Sam Butler: And that helps to prepare if you kind of beforehand–before you find out if you’ve gotten it or not. I guess you kind of touched on not trying other things before as well.

Olga Salinas: Right. Watch for things we’re going to be doing–like we talked about the Medical March Madness. We’re going to be doing a pivot plan workshop as well for students like you were thinking about something and can we shift? 

Kelsey Nelson: Check your emails, these are all going to your emails. Oh my gosh, I know I send them out, career services sends them out, faculty members, and Olga’s team, that’s where these things are being showcased. So yes, please check your emails. 

Sam Butler: Yeah, I’ve seen a couple from you in the past few weeks.

Olga Salinas: And some new ones are coming out, right? Because we’ve got Discovery Day coming up in February. 

Sam Butler: On the 5th? 

Kelsey Nelson: Oh no, Career Fair is on the 5th. But you can still go to the career fair because there are going to be a lot of college health sciences programs represented there, on February 5th, at Extra Mile. But Program Discovery Day, I believe, is on February 25th. 

Sam Butler: Yeah, that sounds right.

Olga Salinas: Where all the College of Health Science programs will be out and students can come and explore. That was a fun event last year, so I’m looking forward to this one. 

Kelsey Nelson: It’ll be good. 

Sam Butler: We kind of talked about this a couple weeks ago when we were at the high school, but what do you most commonly see from high school kids–or like freshmen and sophomores here that don’t allow a four-year graduation or that–not delay, but I feel like it’s becoming a more and more common thing that people aren’t able to graduate in four years. What would you say is the top tip to kind of keep that? 

Olga Salinas: Okay, this is gonna sound weird, the things I’m about to say, there are a couple. One, I mean, love your friends, but don’t listen to them. All right, there’s a lot of complexity in degrees, and your friend may have started a degree here at Boise State ahead of you. They might be in a different catalog year. Requirements shift, their requirements may not be your requirements, so please don’t–if you have questions, go to your advising team.

Secondly, you need to empower yourself. This is a very different situation from high school, where you walk into your council, and they tell you what you’re going to take. Yes, degree requirements are very specific, but there are tools like the academic advising report under advising and academic progress–and every school has something like this, so this is just what we call it. It is very clear what’s required to graduate.

Now, what isn’t as clear for people is the additional things that we might suggest in order to go to graduate school or whatever it might be, but the degree requirements themselves are very clearly identified in the academic advising report, which we call the AAR. As a student, you need to know what that is because that is what the report that the registrar’s office uses to determine your ability to graduate when you file, and if you miss something in that report, you’re not graduating. 

So, the two top things I could think of are you know, love your friends but don’t listen to them and know your AAR. The third is, you got a question…like Kelsey was saying, use your resources, come in and ask. 

Sam Butler: What about math? 

Olga Salinas: Math is a big one. Yeah, that’s a big one. Math placement is really important in the College of Health Sciences because we need to know that you are ready for the rigor of the science courses that are coming up. The nice thing is that if you do your steps as required for orientation and an assessment of mathematics is part of that. It’s really not–not like sitting down for the ACT or SAT. That’s not what it’s like, but that quick assessment gives us a gauge of where you are at the moment and determines your pathway.

So we can–even if you are starting at the very beginning of math, we’ve got a way for you to get from that very beginning to the math that you’re going to need, so that you will be successful in the science courses. So, don’t ignore the pre-orientation checklist that you need to get done because those are all key pieces to an accurate placement of your academics in your first semester and beyond. That was a great question about math because that is important. Math is definitely a foundation. 

Kelsey Nelson: Well, students have to be proactive. I think at the end of the day, right? Students have to be proactive and be willing to look these things up and be willing to ask for help, and be willing to look at that report that you were mentioning, because at the end of the day, it’s your academic experience that you’re looking into. It’s your career that you’re exploring.

I just can’t emphasize enough, like you being–another metaphor, but in the driver’s seat of it all to be successful. That’s the question that we get a lot from like freshmen coming in. Like, what can I do to be successful with my career? And that’s a big part of it. The academic side, being proactive, looking at your reports, being in touch with your advising office, all of these things, to make sure that the academic side of things is also taken care of. 

Olga Salinas: Absolutely. 

Sam Butler: And I feel like Boise State has done a great job. When I have a question, I just Google it, and I put Boise State at the end. And instead of searching through our website, Google will pull up exactly what is necessary. 

Olga Salinas: Exactly what you’re looking for. It’s really fast. 

Sam Butler: Instead of clicking all through each different part of our website, because that can get confusing. 

Kelsey Nelson: Yeah, our website has a lot of great content and information. And sometimes things will be linked in an email, or sometimes you find it the way that you have. Through Google, just at the end of the day, there’s a lot of great stuff on the Boise State website. 

Olga Salinas: It’s interesting to me because I think our students are very brave in a lot of areas. And, then I think it’s kind of funny because it’s almost like there’s some kind of fear factor in looking things up, you know, and I’m like if you had–an example, if somebody said to me what does it take to get admitted to Stanford med, I’m like, I don’t know. I’m gonna Google it, let’s look it up. I mean, don’t be hesitant, you’re not committing to anything by just Googling something, go ahead and explore it.

Kelsey Nelson: Yeah, like, I’m honored when they think I have all the MCAT dates memorized. Thank you so much for thinking that it can fit in my brain, and I can give those to you right now. But let’s look it up together, right? I think that’s a big part of what staff and faculty do to support students on campus is helping them be resourceful and understand the tools that are there for them to be successful. We’re not trying to keep them from you by any means. 

Olga Salinas: I swear, it’s all out there. It truly is all out there. As a matter of fact, in our office, we–especially for the pathways, we have the pathway sheets. So, beyond just the academics, we have created a sheet for every pathway, by semester, that breaks down the things that you should have accomplished that semester, so that as you start heading into your final year, you’re ready to go. Have you created an account with your professional association, like the MCAS or the AMC? Are you getting notifications about things like the virtual medical fairs, and you’re attending those? You’re going to the career fairs and learning about opportunities there? That you have–you see that, ooh, okay, I’ve taken biochem, I’ve taken physics, that means I’ve already taken my ochem, I am ready to go ahead and take that MCAT and schedule for that.

So, they’re all broken down by term. There really isn’t–the equitable distribution of the information has been absolutely critically important to Boise State, so it’s all laid out; you just have to use it. 

Sam Butler: And just one last quick thing, I have three different kinds of questions–just like rapid fire, you don’t have to go in depth.  

Olga Salinas: Okay, all right. That’s hard because we like to talk.

Kelsey Nelson: We do like to talk. 

Sam Butler: Probably, what you guys have quite a bit–this class is too hard for me. I’m gonna fail, what do you–just your first intuition or first step. 

Olga Salinas: Okay, let me clarify. Are you asking that as a student? 

Sam Butler: Yeah, I’m a student. 

Olga Salinas: Are you coming to Kelsey or me? 

Sam Butler: Probably you, in this case, and saying that. 

Olga Salinas: And I’m going to say, welcome to the club. Absolutely, every student, unless they have been some kind of genius from infancy or whatever, has had this absolute hurdle. It’s OK to have come up against a class that you’re going, this class is killing me. Sometimes you have to repeat something. And so we need to be strategic about how we do that. And that’s where we help you. But yes, welcome to the club, it happens.

Kelsey Nelson: Get validated. I usually ask what the student needs in that moment. Sometimes they just need someone to listen. Sometimes, they want help strategizing, and sometimes it’s like, okay, let’s get you connected with your advisor. If it’s an academic question, sometimes with me it will be okay, are there LA sessions that you can attend? Or maybe the student hasn’t felt comfortable asking for help from the faculty member, right? Sometimes those things happen, so yeah, just sitting in the moment with the student asking, okay, what do you need? And helping them get connected to resources that can help them feel like there’s a step to take to help kind of address it. 

Olga Salinas: I know you want me to go rapid-fire, but sometimes that’s an–I’m gonna say this too. Sometimes, it’s an indicator that you were foreclosed and you said to yourself this is what I’m doing and you did not give yourself the chance to think, I really want to do something else.

Sam Butler: Yeah, Kelsey, I need help finding my next step after I graduate. 

Olga Salinas: Oh God, please have found it before that, that’s what she’s here for. 

Kelsey Nelson: Well, it’s–I’m like, there are so many things. 

Sam Butler: What would you start with? 

Kelsey Nelson: I would start with, hey, welcome, right? That’s something that’s totally normal, totally understandable. I first just get to know them, right? What are their interests? Maybe what classes they’ve taken? What classes have they taken that they have felt like rock stars in? And what ones have they taken that they are not as happy with? Right? Things like that. And then we go through a lot of the tools and the resources we have in career services to make a kind of a plan of sorts that the student can use to feel more in the driver’s seat with it. 

So, it could be meeting with a career counselor and doing a career assessment and looking at values, interests, personality, workplace preference, things like that. It could be getting experience in the form of an internship or volunteering. Could be doing informational interviews–those are so valuable. So really, it’s just getting to know the student a bit more and coming up with a plan and steps that the student feels good about. So, then they can take some action, maybe meet with a career counselor again. But also to just let everyone listening know, career services is also free for alumni. So if it’s a senior who has prioritized finals–totally understandable, that happens. And maybe they’re coming after graduation. Great. We’ll support in the same way. 

Sam Butler: Okay, and last, Olga. I’m not sure I like my major anymore. My classes are too hard. I’m not sure I want to do this anymore. 

Olga Salinas: That’s fantastic. That is amazing that you have realized that at this point in time. This is the perfect opportunity to pivot and start thinking about what Kelsey just talked about. What do you like? What can we explore, and what kinds of opportunities exist in those things that you are passionate about? You want to stay in healthcare? There’s a wide range of jobs that are available in careers, really exciting careers that are available in healthcare that you can do. Take this work that you’ve already done and still transition into something else.

So, if you come to me and you tell me that, I think good for you for realizing that before going through four to five years of absolute struggle coming at the other end and going, I hated that. Oh my gosh. Being in college at a university is such–I realize how hard our students work, but in all honesty, it’s such a privilege. So use it for your own best good. Nobody else is doing this but you, right? 

Kelsey Nelson: I once had an intern come to me, and they felt guilty that the internship they had did not–like they realized it was something they didn’t want to do as a career. I was like fantastic. 

Olga Salinas: That is the best news ever.

Kelsey Nelson: Let’s talk about it, right? Let’s talk about what the aspects of it are, what did you learn about yourself in the process, right? Because you’ve just learning more about what you need. It’s just as good to cross something off the list as it is to put something on the list, so yeah, when students come with those types of questions or thoughts. It’s great as that gives us information to be able to provide more support.

Sam Butler: That’s all I have. 

Olga Salinas: Fantastic. Thank you so much! It was a lot of fun. 

Kelsey Nelson: Thank you!

Sam Butler: Thank you for joining me.