Supporting First-Gen Students in Pursuit of Competitive Careers

Career Level: Basic-, intermediate-, and advanced-level career services professionals
Competency: Working with diverse populations
Fee: $69 (member); $89 (nonmember);

Summary
This presentation will reveal experience-informed findings on how to support first-generation students pursuing careers with demanding timelines. After five years of teaching a seminar to students pursuing careers in business, the presenter has learned of a distinct set of challenges that first-generation students face. Competitive careers in finance, investment banking, and consulting require an early start that proves challenging without informational support from students’ families and pre-existing networks. Students need to demonstrate a record of achievement that is expected to have started before first-gen students even become aware that they should be developing it to secure entry-level positions in competitive fields. This webinar will share ideas on how this inconsistency can be remedied.

Following this program, you will be able to:
- Understand the unique challenges that first-gen students face when pursuing careers with demanding application timelines;
- Understand how to advise and support first-gen students in pursuing challenging careers, such as those in consulting and finance; and
- design support structures that can assist first-gen students by compensating for the lack of familial informational and network support.
Presenters

Nina Wieda, Assistant Professor of Instruction, Northwestern University
Nina Wieda is an assistant professor of instruction at Northwestern University. She teaches undergraduates in the Chicago Field Studies experiential learning program that combines a quarter-long internship with a credit-bearing seminar. In her Business Field Studies seminar, students explore their professional aspirations and their relationship with society through the medium of work. Dr. Wieda advises the Quest+ Undergraduate Student Group and focuses on helping first-generation and lower-income students achieve their professional and personal goals. Her op-ed "Admitting First-Generation and Low-Income Students is Not Enough" was published in "Diverse Issues in Higher Education" in August 2022. In November 2022, Dr. Wieda led a workshop on designing academic internship programs at the Association of Experiential Education annual conference.