It’s never too early to start thinking about your career while in college, but it’s definitely too early to start feeling pressured about it. The process of career discovery and development is an important complement to your academic work at Georgia Tech, so the aim of this unit is to help you start focusing on your career in an intentional but low stress way.
As a first-year student, however, there are certain tasks of career development that you want to tackle right off the bat. This includes:
- writing your resume (or updating your high school one);
- crafting a basic cover letter that you will tailor for future opportunities;
- getting started on LinkedIn;
- writing thank you notes;
- and introducing yourself in professional settings (also called an “elevator pitch”)
While there is information on all of those things on the C2D2 website, as well as through workshops offered throughout the year, and in one-on-one career advising, we want you to have guidance at your fingertips.
Contributors to this unit
Susan Belmonte Susan Belmonte is an advisor in the Center for Career Discovery and Development (C2D2), with a specialization in pre-teaching and pre-law. Susan came to Georgia Tech in 2012 after 17 years as a high school Latin teacher. She has received two Fulbright Scholar grants and a Rotary International Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship. She double majored in Latin and Ancient Greek, has an M.Ed. in special education, and is a current doctoral student in higher education administration. Despite all of that studying, Susan still finds time to be outdoors, hang out with her family (dog included), and binge watch.
Elaine M. Damon, M.S., NCC Lanie Damon, Senior Career Development Advisor in C2D2, came to Georgia Tech after several decades of experience in multiple careers and roles, and helping hundreds of professionals change careers and jobs. When she is not advising and counseling students to explore professions, she is walking in-town Atlanta with her Airedale terrier and enjoying the best cappuccino.
Michael Laughter Michael is the Education and Outreach Communications Manager for the Center for Career Discovery and Development. He has been at Georgia Tech since 2001. He began his tenure at Tech as a Technical Communications instructor in LMC and has also taught the communication components of two junior-level labs and senior design in ECE. He has an MA in Technical Writing and an MFA in Poetry and Fiction. Laughter is the former owner of a landscape design company, where he brought a lot of order and a little bit of chaos to the plant world. He seeks to do the same in business communications.
Merideth Ray Merideth is the Associate Director of Undergraduate Admission. She is a Georgia Tech graduate with a B.S. in Science, Technology, and Culture. She has served as a GT1000 instructor more than 12 times. Meredith holds a master’s degree in Professional Counseling and is currently a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Counseling Psychology at Georgia State University. She served as a practicum counselor in the Center for Career Discovery and Development for the 2016-2017 school year. Her research interests include college transition and resilience, stress and coping, and women in STEM fields. She enjoys cooking and eating delicious food and spending time outside with her husband, daughter, and three dogs.
Michelle Tullier, Ph.D. Dr. Tullier is executive director of the Center for Career Discovery and Development at Georgia Tech. She brings 30 years of experience in career services and corporate leadership roles to the design of leading edge approaches to career education. Dr. Tullier teaches a course on the psychology of work in the GT Honors Program and is a GT 1000 instructor. When not working, she takes awkward selfies and FaceTimes with her Gen Z college student daughter.
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