The Tufts Career Center offers lifelong support to help your student navigate the career development process. As parents, you are an important partner in a student’s career journey. Review our lists of where Tufts students go after graduation (employment and grad school destinations by major) to get a sense of the wide range of fields in which different majors succeed.
Our Philosophy
Focus on students. Each student is a unique individual with different skills, interests, and life experiences. From first years through seniors to grad students and alumni, we help students of all majors and career interests with a wide variety of issues ranging from major and career exploration to specific plans for reaching their internship, job, and higher education goals.
Ensure privacy, safety and support. We respect students’ privacy, their values, and their uniqueness.
Ask students to participate. To make progress, students need to be active participants. We can advise them about appropriate action steps, but they must be the ones to act.
Provide connection to resources. Career advisors have a breadth of knowledge about a variety of career fields, but our main expertise lies in the career planning process. Instead of telling your student specific details about careers, we direct them to resources to get the information they need.
Recommend tactics and strategies for finding jobs and internships. We talk with students about ways they can discover job or internship opportunities, but we cannot provide a ready-made list of open positions that fit their exact situation.
Encourage students to think broadly. We invite students to take a multi-faceted approach to career development by encouraging them to use our resources, attend our events, speak with career advisors, and learn from fellow students, Tufts alumni, and YOU — their parents.
Starting a Career Conversation with Your Student
Ask open-ended, low-stress questions such as:
- “Which of your classes do you enjoy the most?”
- “In which activities have you been the happiest?”
- “What excites you about this area of study/internship?”
- “Tell me about _____”
Before you jump in offering advice you might ask:
- “Would you like help with _____?”
- “What can I (we) do to support you?”
For more on career topics, check out our Career Corner in the Tufts Parents & Families Newsletter.
