Green Career Exploration & Career Skill Building - GCC

Course Description: The 21st century has been labeled the ‘green’ century, and promises expanded opportunities for careers oriented toward sustainability. This course explores the diverse array of expanding green career opportunities and the impact of sustainability on existing occupations and industries. Students identify local career opportunities while engaging community members and organizations. Students develop important work-finding skills such as resume creation, interviewing and networking. Why the Course Was Developed: SCI 135 was developed to provide students in GCC’s Renewable Energy/Energy Efficiency (RE/EE) program with an elective option for exploring green careers to pursue after graduation and to develop the work readiness skills needed to seek internships and employment. Career services at GCC have been limited since the campus career center was closed in 2007 due to funding cuts. The RE/EE program opted to use the DOL Transformations Agenda funding as an opportunity to experiment with elective course offerings as a means of filling the career development services gap. This class was built to be responsive to student occupational interests, individual skill sets and experience, and career development timing. This course works best if the materials and presentation honor where students are at. Additional materials and local connections are one of the hallmarks of this class and one of the things that make it work well. For example, this includes recruiting panelists and mock interviewers with experience and jobs relevant to students, sharing job postings that fit students’ expressed interests, making connections for students relevant to their career interests. This also includes emphasizing skill development that is most needed. For this class, networking and resume development were areas that needed more practice and attention. Extra time was spent on these two things – more than is reflected in the syllabus.