Career Services works for students and local businesses

Submitted by Carla Browning
Phone: (907) 474-7581
08/08/05

Patti Picha is planning to put University of Alaska Fairbanks students to work this fall. As the new director for Career Services, she’s the right person for the job.

"Employers expect applicants to be well prepared," said Picha. "They know students have access to resources from how to write a cover letter to the final interview."

Career Services provides career counseling, job search and internship advising and counselors give career advice to more than 1000 students each year. Picha would like to significantly increase the number of freshman and sophomores who benefit from career counseling.

"We like students to contact us early in their academic careers," said Picha. "Knowing what careers are emerging may influence their choice of a major, minor or elective courses. These decisions are often made in the student’s first year."

Picha also works with local businesses to create internships for students, which in turn creates a source of potential employees for businesses and agencies. Career Services is the central point of contact for campus employers recruiting UAF students, alumni, staff and faculty.

"Local businesses don’t always know how to go about finding student interns or formalizing internship agreements," said Picha. "Others contact individual departments directly with some success. We’d like to strengthen our partnerships with UAF departments, businesses and local schools because employers often hire directly from their internship pool."?

Picha has more than 20 years experience in higher education and has been with UAF Career Services for three years. She has a master’s degree of education in student personnel administration from Western Washington University and a bachelor’s in leisure services from Central Washington. Prior to coming to UAF she was the director of the Campbell College Center at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo.

Contact: Patti Picha at (907) 474-7596 or fnplp@uaf.edu for more information.

A high resolution photo is available for download.