By Molly Cline
Stress and anxiety are common among college students, especially ones that go to the University of Illinois. Attending a world-renowned university can come with a lot of pressures; the largest pressure is trying to find a job right out of college.
Whether you are a freshman dealing with the pressures of adjusting to a new environment without your friends and family or a senior trying to figure out your entire life in the span of a few months, there are resources on campus available for you.
Although it is exciting to get a job and a place to call your own right after college, plenty of people go back to living at their parent’s house after college. There is no problem living with your parents until you find a job and can start your new life.
That being said, The Career Center at the University of Illinois offers many services to help ameliorate the stress-filled process of finding a job. The Career Center offers services such as resumé workshops and interview preparation. The Career Center is located at 715 S. Wright Street and is open from 8:30-5:00 Monday-Friday. A list of the services offered and when they are offered is available on their website.
A subset of The Career Center is a website called I-Link. This is the website that students must visit if they are looking directly for a job. The site allows you to submit documents such as resumés and cover letters. It also allows you to perform searches to find jobs and internships that you specifically qualify for. You can then apply directly from the website to these jobs. It also notifies you of what is going on around campus related to finding jobs, such as campus career fairs.
In order to manage the stress and anxiety that comes with trying to keep grades up and finding a job, The Counseling Center at the University of Illinois provides many services to help the mental health of students all around campus. Their website says “Counseling Center services are designed to help students address many of the academic, relational, social, and emotional concerns they face.”
Making an appointment is really easy. Call 217-333-3704 on the day that you want to have your initial appointment. Any time after 7:50 a.m. on Monday through Friday, the line is available to make appointments. Their website says, “We use the “same-day scheduling” for first-time appointments because we believe this allows us to reach students at the point of their greatest need.”
When going to the first appointment students should expect to be at the Counseling Center for about 90 minutes total. Some of the time will be spent filling out paperwork, while the rest of the time is spent talking anonymously to a counselor about some of the reasons why the appointment was made in the first place.
There are also other options that don’t include talking to a counselor. The ARC is a great place to go to blow off steam if talking to other people isn’t your thing.
While University of Illinois students face many pressures, there are many more resources available for all students to have the best experience possible.
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*Image Sources:
http://blog.admissions.illinois.edu/
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