What does a day in the life of a St. Kate’s alum look like?
Alumni Relations and Career Development collaborate to feature amazing alumnae
“St. Kate's produces amazing alumni, and every single one of them has an impactful, interesting, unique story to share,” says Corinne Burrell, alumni associate in the St. Kate’s alumni relations office.
Back in August, I was deciding what I wanted to focus on within the Career Development office, and I heard that Corinne from the Alumni Relations office wanted to find a way to share what a normal day in the life of alumni looked like. We connected virtually and the rest is history.
The Concept
When starting this project, one challenge was to figure out who to reach out to. To address this problem, I compiled a list of all the majors and programs offered by St. Kate’s and put them into a randomizer.
Once randomized, I sent this list of majors over to Corinne, who reached out to alumni from each major and connected them with me in the Career Development Office.
“They are always gracious and enthusiastic about the project,” says Corinne.
I would definitely agree. I reach out to each alum after Corinne introduces us, and they are always so fun to interview! Once we chat, I take the information I gather from each amazing alum and write a blog featuring them.
The Reason
But why spend so much time and energy on this project? This ongoing collaboration between Career Development and Alumni Relations has many different advantages. First, these blogs allow amazing St. Kate’s alumni to be spotlighted.
“Oftentimes, the alumni who we feature are out doing groundbreaking work or achieving fabulous milestones and awards, but this blog partnership seemed like a great opportunity to highlight some alumni who are changing the world in their day-to-day work,” says Corinne.
Along with highlighting the great grads of our university, this series also makes it evident to current students that they can and will be successful after college. For example, highlighting what these alumni majored in in college and what they do now gives students an idea about how to figure out what they want to study and what kind of career path they might be interested in pursuing.
At the end of each blog, these alumni also give unfiltered advice to students about what they wish they had known in college and what they had to learn through experience.
The Features
These blogs are also meant to show, rather than tell, students that there is so much opportunity as a St. Kate’s student and as an alum of the university. Corinne speaks more about what each featured blog entails:
“Each one outlines the alumni's background, what they participated in as students, how their career started and led them to [where they are] now, what a day on the job looks like, and some advice for current Katies,” she says. “Each month I am so impressed by the blogs, and it's always fun to learn more about our alumni. I am so grateful for this collaboration!”
The Alumni
So far, this Career Development/Alumni Relations collaboration has produced six blogs on six strong, independent St. Kate’s Alums. Click the links below on each alumni’s name to read each of their feature blogs.
Employee Engagement Associate at Step Up AchieveMPLS
Major: Biology
Owner & Doula at Lotus Birth & BodyWorks
Majors: Public Health and Psychology
Research Fellow at the University of Michigan
Major: English
Occupational Therapist with the St. Paul School District
Major: Exercise and Sport Science, Master’s in Occupational Therapy
Med Student at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Major: Biology, pre-Med
Director of Styling at Evereve
Majors: Fashion Merchandising and Apparel Design
Online KatieCareer Center
These blogs can be found on the KatieCareer Virtual Center. This online platform also has tons of other resources and shows what virtual events for Career Development are coming up. If you have more ideas about what resources you would like to see on the Virtual Center, let us know by emailing askcareer@stkate.edu.
