Counseling
Career development assistance is available to Patterson School students through three means: this website, one-on-one mentor counseling with faculty (which may also include support and assistance from the Patterson School alumni network), and through the James W. Stuckert Career Center.
The Stuckert Career Center does an outstanding job assisting all University of Kentucky students and alumni with career exploration and job search tools. Brooke Brown is specifically responsible for helping Patterson School students and alumni with their career needs. She can be reached at 859-257-2751. The Center offers general career counseling, career workshops, mock interview training, and public and private sector recruitment events.
While the career center can be an outstanding resource, we believe – in keeping with our specialized program of study – that career assistance must also be personalized. Patterson School faculty, staff, and alumni will offer insights on how to craft successful resumes and applications, on which internships should compliment your ambitions, and on the secret to negotiating the seemingly Byzantine federal job process. Our faculty follow the job market closely and also alert students and alumni to potentially promising opportunities as they arise.
As helpful as all this support is intended to be, it is no substitute for each student’s own initiative, commitment, and drive. Students should decide how to package coursework, an internship, language ability, and prior experience to best pursue their goals. Students must also determine if a life bouncing from one continent to another as a Foreign Service officer is preferable to one working out of Paris as a sales manager. Or, whether they are up for the danger that could accompany living in the Middle East or the poverty that may surround them in West Africa or South Asia. Our faculty’s decades of employment in global careers can be of valuable assistance here, as can the experience of our more recent graduates. But, once again, only the student knows what truly drives his or her heart and soul.
What is important is that at the Patterson School no one has to plan and start this life journey alone.
