Career Advisement for the Neurodivergent, with Beacon College’s Dr. James Williams | EDB 283

Autism self-advocate and Beacon College’s Director of Career Advisement/Development/Partnership Dr. James Williams discusses his work helping students find employment.

Beacon College, a private nonprofit college founded in 1989 in Leesburg, Florida, is the first accredited institution of higher learning designed with curriculum and support services to serve those students with dyslexia, ADHD, or other specific learning disabilities. They offer Associate of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Human Services, Interdisciplinary Studies, Computer Information Systems, Psychology, and Business Management. It is regionally accredited through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and is licensed by the Florida Department of Education.

To find out more about Beacon, visit: https://www.beaconcollege.edu/ 

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DR HACKIE REITMAN (HR):  

Hi, I’m Dr. Hackie Reitman. Welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains. And today I’m honored because we have coming from Beacon College in Florida. That wonderful college, just for those of us whose brains are a bit different, we have the Director of Career advisement, development and partnership. None other than Dr. James Williams of Beacon College. James, welcome.

DR JAMES WILLIAMS (JW):  

Thank you Hackie, good to meet you. And glad to be here.

HR:  

Well, thank you for being here. You know, I was so taken the times, I’ve been to Beacon College with what Dr. Hagerty and you and the whole team have just done there, the students are wonderful. Tell us, first of all, let’s introduce yourself properly. Because after all, you are an autistic self advocate yourself. So let’s give the proper introduction from your perspective.

JW:  

Sure. So um, yeah, you talk to my mom about my professional role and my title what I do here at Beacon, but um, yeah, I was I was diagnosed when I was 12 years old, with Asperger’s disorder at the time. Now, autism spectrum disorder. And, you know, one of the challenging parts for me, I told you bullying, I’m 35. Now, it’s it’s been, you know, it’s been a lot been a while since the diagnosis is, you know, this kind of understanding that individuals on the spectrum are very capable, I’m writing honestly, anybody who learns differently, very capable of successful gainful employment. But we also need support to do that. And, and it needs to be very intentional, and very, I like to tell my staff all the time, hope is not a strategy. It is it has not been unfortunately, in, you know, up until recently in, in this field of, of working with people that learn differently, or have neurodiversity. Unfortunately, that has been kind of the strategy of employment, it’s like, well, you know, we hope they get jobs, we hope that they they make it we hope that, you know, all of what we did for them when they were in school will get them to that point. But that’s not the best strategy, what we’ve got to be doing is being more intentional. So one of the things that I did, I was a private, and public Special Ed teacher fell in love with transition wanted to work with students, because, you know, at the time, I was working in special education, and my students would like leave, I was a middle school teacher, so they’d leave in eighth grade. And I would be like, well, good luck, I hope, I hope, you know, hope it works. Good luck to you, you know, and I didn’t want to do that anymore. I decided, you know, what I want to I want to see the end of the rabbit hole, I want to see where they go. So. So I ended up getting my master’s in rehab counseling, becoming a certified rehab counselors salon today. And because I really believe in the in the connection between work, and employment, and college, and kind of how this all come together. And so, for me, that really is what my passion is, that’s, you know, a passion that I brought to Beacon and what we do to this day, and I tell a lot of people, you know, I didn’t go to Beacon College, I wish I did. I didn’t even know about it. When I went to college, if I did, I probably would have went there actually, but didn’t even know it existed. And funnily enough, I had family that my mom grew up in Florida and a while and I didn’t even know. So that’s kind of funny. And not far away, either. It’s small world, I guess. But, you know, I think for me, you know, we’ve done a great job over the years with our academic services and support at Beacon, I think it really is unique, and one of a kind across the country, especially with our transition support and programs and things. And so now, you know, my job that I take it as both personally and professionally is to bring that level of excellence to our career preparation as well.

HR:  

What would you say is the biggest barrier to your goals at Beacon College, and Beacon Colleges goals? What’s the biggest barrier from your point of view?

JW:  

I think, you know, it’s kind of an interesting question, because there’s, unfortunately, there’s quite a few, but I’ll pick one. If I had to pick one, I think, you know, for us, it’s it’s perception. And I’m going to explain what I mean, you know, for if you’ve been to Beacon, which you have, and if anybody else who watches this has been there, we have a very diverse student body, we really do in the best possible ways. We’ve gotten individuals who very high functioning intellectually, very academically, you know, gifted, you know, will be tremendously successful, you know, to be honest, probably at any school because they’re just so motivated and so capable. But we also have students who really struggle academically and who have, you know, limited ability, they have ability, but limited ability, maybe in certain areas, learn disability, certain things like that. And then we’ve got students in between and kind of all through that spectrum. And so I share all that to say that one of our challenges and barriers for us is helping people to understand how diverse our student body really is. And as part of that, with employment, what, you know, maybe a good job for some of our students may not be a good job for others. But we also don’t want to do this kind of lump overgeneralization. And unfortunately, that’s something that I think happens a lot in the neurodiversity and employment field, is this idea of, you know, well, you know, those jobs are here, that’s not going to be a fit for our students, or vice versa, you know, those jobs aren’t, you know, a high level enough, they’re not going to be a fit for our students. And neither of those things are true. We’ve got students all over the the spectrum in terms of like career goals, and we’ve got students that, you know, frankly, aren’t looking to move up, they want to get into a stable job, they want to get steady there, they want to be happy and successful, and they don’t want to leave. And that’s totally fine. We also have students who want to climb the ladder, they want to come in at an entry level, and they have the skills and the ability and the passion and desire to move up. And they want to do that. And that’s great, too. So I think, you know, going back to your question, it’s it’s perception, it’s people perceiving our students one way, and not really fully appreciating the diversity that they actually bring.

HR:  

Very well said, Very well said. A lot of autistic individuals and their loved ones are very concerned about getting careers, you know, and I know the beacon does such a good job preparation wise. Alright. What has been the journey of Beacon to focus on career paths, as opposed to, you know, say liberal arts or general education?

JW:  

Sure. So and I think we we’ve, we acknowledge both, but I think for us, it was, it’s been intentional in a couple of ways. One of the things that we we knew is we needed to be more intentional about career preparation for our students. So and this was well, before I got to the college, our board, our faculty and staff developed a four year career development model designed to prepare students and provide career development and support throughout their journey from a freshman to a senior. And so that was one big piece that we put into place. Because we realized that just the students learning these skills, anecdotally, through classes through other coursework or other methods, it just wasn’t happening. And it doesn’t happen to be honest, I can say that from experience. So. So that was one of those pieces that we we’ve really been been focused on. The other piece, though, that we’ve really had to kind of zero in on is is, and I talked earlier about hope not being a strategy is being intentional about our partnerships. So really, not just you know, I explained this on an interview I did a couple of days ago, not just kind of casting a wide net and trying to get as many employers as we can and, you know, connect with them. And things say that that’s not enough. How can we actually be more intentional about developing pipelines from what our degrees are to employers that that want to hire individuals in general, but even specifically, those with narrow diversities and learning differences? How can we create these pipelines directly to those employers? And so that is what we’re really doing now is trying to be more intentional about creating those those true, you know, you’ve got this degree, here’s a pipeline to a great employer with lots of opportunities in that degree and kind of, you know, and then repeat, you know.

HR:  

And do you make it a two way street between beacon and the employer, to give them the tools and education, the employer that is, to help the individual achieve success?

JW:  

Absolutely, we do. And it generally looks one of two ways. So some of the employers that we work with, in the first way, may already have some type of neurodiversity or inclusive hiring initiative. And so for those employers, as you can imagine, naturally, we don’t have to do as much education, they generally are, are well aware of the benefits of hiring individuals that are neurodiverse, or learn differently, they see the benefits they see and have had success. And so for us, it’s more about us kind of plugging in and helping our our graduates or outgoing students kind of fill the roles they have within their their programs. And vice versa, though, for the other set of employers we work with, who don’t have their traditional initiatives, we are doing a ton of education. So we’re coming in and said, we’re kind of going the other direction trying to talk to them. And I don’t want to say convince them. But yeah, convinced them, of the benefits of hiring our students, why our students can be good employees for them, educating them about how to make accommodations, how to provide support, things like that. That’s a big part of what we do as well. And I’m proud to say that we do but we have both types of relationships. So I think you know, for us, at the end of the day, regardless of if it’s a neurodiversity specific program, or if it’s just an employer down the street from college, we’re building that same intentional pipeline is just doing it a little bit differently.

HR:  

And how has COVID with the new virtuality of the world with remote jobs changed? career paths.

JW:  

I think it’s true, it is still changing, and definitely has not settled yet. But oh my gosh, it is Kermit created tremendous change for our students. So for example, in the past, for a lot of our students, you know, I would say 80 to 90% of our students were looking at the, you know, their options were in person employment, and in person employment only, right, pre COVID. That was the norm. I would say, Now, when we’re working with employers, pretty much every employer we work with has, if not, you know, all, most of their opportunities are either hybrid based, where they can work in person and virtually, or they’re fully virtual. And that’s actually totally flipped to become the norm now. So I think for some of our students, what’s great about that is we have students now who live in other parts of the country, who previously couldn’t have accessed an opportunity with, you know, fill in the name of the company, but now they can because even though the company is based in Seattle, Washington, and they’re in DC, they can do that work virtually. And so I think that that’s been a tremendous change, and we only see it accelerating, by the way. So, you know, a lot of people thought, you know, after COVID, and you know, things settle down with COVID, people, you know, things will kind of shift back to the status quo, not at all, what we’re seeing is actually a further push towards remote work. What seems to kind of be the sweet spot seems to be with a lot of employers seems to be the hybrid roles of, you know, hey, you’re in the office one or two days a week, but otherwise, you’re completely virtual and doing your job, you know, on your own schedule. And that’s, that’s the typical thing that we’re seeing now, especially with like, technology based companies, finance companies, business related roles. One of the — its not a challenge, but it’s just the truth — for some of our careers, though, it there isn’t a lot of virtual opportunity. In the end, you know, they’ll give you good example anthrozoology, right? It’s one of our one of our degrees. For anthrozoology. You can’t work with an animal, virtually, you can’t feed them virtually, you got to you know, so for those students, most of their opportunities, I would say 95 plus percent of those opportunities are in person, because they have to be, but especially with some of like I said, our our CIS majors, Computer Information Sciences, our business majors, you know, definitely big push towards those virtual and hybrid roles for sure.

HR:  

Now, what about the way it’s affected your student base, for instance, I know here a differentbrains.org we now have interns from all over the world, because everything’s virtual. And, and to the ones that are local, it’s now hybrid, but the ones who were in, you know, India, wherever they happen to be, you know, it’s all virtual. What about the Beacon student population now?

JW:  

So, a lot of our students, so it depends. Now, if they’re in a traditional degree program, at Beacon, most of those, the vast majority of those students are definitely in person. A, because of the classes and the requirement to be in person for those, but also just because of the social opportunities and the dorms and things like that. However, beacon has a ton of transitional programs and transition based services for students that are either, you know, either not age, they’re not at the age for college, or they’re maybe just not ready for college. And most of those students now are completely virtual. And so we have, from what I’ve been told, close to 100, that was the last time the person I talked to about, that’s what he last told me is we had about 100 students in those virtual only programs, which is incredible. So I think, you know, there’s definitely more opportunities there. The other thing we’re seeing too, though, is, you know, at Beacon, one of the requirements for students is they have to get 80 hours or more of an internship to graduate. And what’s really interesting now is some of those students can do those internships 100%, virtually, and again, prior to COVID, that really wasn’t much of an option. And so we’ve got students now who are doing, you know, 80 hours, literally for, you know, a nonprofit on the other side of the country or for an organization, you know, hundreds of miles away, they’re doing, you know, virtual computer based work getting their 80 hours, and, you know, it’s done. And so I think that’s a big been a big change as well, it’s just the availability to do that. The other piece, too, is meetings, you know, I tell people, you know, we meet with employers all the time at the center. And as part of that, that pipeline building I was talking about earlier. And you know, while some of those aren’t person, most of them are not most of them are zooms or their teams meetings. And so what’s great about that is we’re able to collaborate with partners all over the country now for our students. And I don’t know if they’ve shared this statistic with you, but Tom, only 20% of our students at Beacon are from Florida. 80% are actually from across the country and the rest of the states. So why that is so important is we can’t just develop pipelines in Florida, because we would literally be serving to have 10 out of 10 of our students. We’re developing those partnerships nationwide, and even internationally in some cases. And we can do that now because of the power of those virtual platforms.

HR:  

That’s great. Why don’t you tell our audience where you are located with your beautiful campus there and where you will are graphically?

JW:  

Absolutely so um, so we’re at Leesburg, Florida which is about an hour northwest of Orlando on the Florida Turnpike. And it’s a beautiful place. I tell people if you if you think of like, traditional Florida or sent like especially like Central Florida, that is literally to the tee what Leesburg looks like, we’ve got a really beautiful old, old downtown. In fact, what’s kind of interesting about the campus is we’re, I joke and I tell people, I’m not saying well, Leesburg is not an urban area, it is a small town, we are kind of considered an urban campus because we are actually completely embedded within the downtown of the city. So as we we basically over time kind of taken over buildings, and continue to kind of move into downtown at some point the joke on campus is that, you know, it’s going to end up being all beacon buildings downtown, which might be, but that’s a big part of what we do. But the other benefit I tell people about our location, is while we have some opportunities, of course, for students employment wise internship wise in in in in Leesburg, and Lake County, Florida, which is the county we’re in, we also have opportunities all across the Orlando area, because it’s so close, particularly, you know, for our hospitality students, that we you know, we’ve got about 50 minutes to Walt Disney World about 45 minutes to universal, about, you know, 4849 minutes to SeaWorld. So we’ve got a lot of amazing opportunities, hotels, restaurants, things like that for hospitality students as well. And so one of the things I really like personally just about our campus is, is it has a very kind of cozy remove feel. But at the same time, we’re close enough to the to the Atlanta metro area that our students have a lot of great opportunities for work.

HR:  

So if I were going to be meeting with the board of education here in Fort Lauderdale, and I said, You know what, I was speaking with James Williams at Beacon College. And I asked him, How do you think the education system can better prepare the neuro divergence in general? What advice would you have for the public education system?

JW:  

Oh, gosh, a lot. How much time do you have? I’ll make a list. No, no, seriously, I could, but no, I’ll give you kind of some big things. I probably the biggest thing is we’ve got to do a better job teaching our students self advocacy and self determination skills. And the reason I say that is because you know, at the end of the day, my staff and I can help students with their cover letters or resumes, we can practice interviewing, we can do all of those things and get them ready to apply for and even get, you know, get a job. But at the same time, what we can’t do is we can’t do the job for the student, we can’t make them show up every day, we can’t do those those essential things that really it takes to be a good employee. But where I see a lot of those things really come down to it’s that self advocacy, it’s the ability for them to make their own decisions, share their own their own ideas, really, as I tell people kind of steer the car of life that they’re in. And so I think that’s a big piece that I really would like to see public education do a better job with. The other piece too, is just like, we have to be intentional at Deakin College, about getting our students jobs and creating these pipelines with employers. We also need public education to be just as intentional about getting them to college and being more intentional about getting them to us. And so in a perfect world, I feel like at Beacon once they’re with us, we do a lot but getting them here for us. Sometimes it’s a challenge. And so I think that intentionality is really needed at the K 12k 12. area. And one of the things I tell people I don’t know, actually, if you’ve heard this, this, this statistic before, but you know, according to the Department of Labor, literally 1/3 of people with disabilities are employed at 1/3 the rate of adults without any type of disability, or neurodiversity. And that’s a terrible statistic and the one that we’ve had for a long time. And so what I also tell people is, is if you’re on the mentality that it’s not broke, don’t fix it fine. The problem is, is according to statistics, it is broke. So we need to fix it. And we need to do things differently and be far more intentional about getting opportunities for our, you know, for individuals like myself into these these successful career roles. And also acknowledge that it’s not just about did they get a job check a box, and I’ll give you a good example of that. You know, at Beacon, we’re really proud that it’s, you know, in the mid 80 percentile of percent of our students, six months after graduation have employment, and we’re proud of that as we should be. However, for us, it doesn’t just stop there. It’s also about are they getting jobs in their major? Are they are they getting jobs that directly lead from and are a result of their degree and their academic training that they received? And that’s the piece that again, we’re talking about. It’s not just hey, and I’m not picking on Publix develop Publix, but, but you know, it’s not just hey, did they get a job at Publix? No, it’s did they get it? You know, that’s a career goal. Fine, but for a lot of our students, that’s not the career goal. So are we really helping them achieve their career goal related to their major for graduation, that’s what I really care about. And that’s the statistic that I really want to focus on not just hey, did we check a box and get them a job so we can feel good about ourselves.

HR:  

You know, if, um, tell us about your journey, in getting your own diagnosis for those in our audience who might be wondering, well, you know, my, my kids a little bit different. And when am I going to get this diagnosis? How am I going to do it? What am I going to do?

JW:  

Yeah, I think for me, you know, tell a little bit about my story. So I was actually I was diagnosed when I was 12. But the reason that I got diagnosed at that age is because in kind of my late, was, like, 8989 1011, towards that those couple of years, my parents recognized that I was just a little bit different. But not only that, they recognize that I had a hard time making friends and had a hard time kind of forming some of those kind of traditional social connections that you expect at that age. But at the time, you know, the thought of, of autism being a high functioning, disability wasn’t really understood yet. And so autism was definitely not the first thing that my parents or anybody that talked to my parents or myself thought, however, I ended up going to a psychologist, a clinical psychologist, who, funny enough, had just come back from a whole conference on Asperger’s disorder at that, and it actually just gotten all this training on it. And then my mom at had brought me in to see him to basically, you know, do some some diagnostic testing and see, you know, if there was if there was something going on, and and in that diagnostic testing, he, I think it was a 96 percentile or 96% certainty that was on the spectrum. And so that’s kind of how I got diagnosed. But what was interesting for me was the diagnosis was only part of it, you know, then it’s okay, well, what are we going to do about it? And so they really had to look at, you know, as, as a kid, what were the challenges that I had? Well, most of my challenges were, were very much kind of on the social side of things. I’ve always been very strong academically, I’m not all of our students are. But I was very fortunate to not have that as one of my challenges. For me, it was the social piece it was making friends, it was, you know, developing relationships and networking with people for employment and in college, things like that. So those are the pieces that I worked on and received social skills, training and therapy for a long time, through high school, in college, but through through middle and high school. After diagnosis, I also take medication to help with anxiety and depression. And those challenges, as a lot of our students do have those as well, OCD symptoms, things like that. And so for me, that’s what’s been really helpful. I’ve also done counseling I’m not doing at the moment, but throughout my life, I’ve done counseling when I needed to. And so I think, for me, you know, part of the journey was, is also kind of understanding what, what really does limit us, and I tell our students all the time, certainly not making light of anybody’s neurodiversity, or challenges at all, not at the same time, you know, people ask me, Why have I been successful? Well, if I really think about it, it has to do with motivation. Despite my challenges, I’ve always been a very motivated individual. And so even though I had X, Y, and Z challenges, I was very motivated to achieve my goal. And so I was very persistent. And I just kept pushing and pushing and kind of riding that wave of motivation to get eventually to my goal. And I tell people, it’s been that throughout my life, you know, I, when I was in high school, I’d never thought I’d graduated high school. And then I managed to do that. Then I thought, Oh, I’m gonna go to college, and I’m gonna get my bachelor’s degree, that’s gonna be really hard. But I was persistent. I was motivated, I got that done. Then I said, Okay, well, you know, I want to really be, I want to get a master’s and I want to get into rehabilitation counseling, that’s probably going to be difficult, but I’m going to try it was able to do that and get there. And then last year with my doctorate, I was very doubtful I was ever going to finish I even told many of the people I know that my family, my friends that I when I enrolled in an in school, I said, I’m brought watch, I’m probably going to get to my dissertation. And I’m just going to be ABD, I’m gonna, you know, I’ve got everything done, except that, and I’m never gonna get my dissertation done. And then I was able to do that. So I think, you know, part of it that we have to recognize for for students and people like myself, is success breeds success. And so when you try it, and you do it, you’re successful, it creates a positive kind of a snowball effect of, hey, if I can do this, I can do this. If I can take this step I can do this step. And kind of that progressive growth is really, really important. And frankly, how I got to where I am in my life is is building on those successes very individually. And over, you know, a long time over decades, literally.

HR:  

What else would you like our audience to know about Beacon College? 

JW:  

I think you know, a lot. I could — go to our website. 

HR:  

Tell us the website. 

JW:  

Yeah. So it’s beaconcollege.edu. And actually, I would encourage you to go to our website, not just because, you know, I work there, but also because it’s kind of like On great resources, videos and information on it, it really does. We have an incredible communications team that does an incredible job. They really do they, they help us with our materials as well. And they blow us out of the water sometimes with what they’re able to do. And so that’s a great resource for you. Um, the other thing too, that I would encourage you is just like happy to come visit the campus. You know, at the end of the day, what I tell students, whether you’re coming to Beacon or any college is you want to get on that campus, you want to see how it feels? Is it warm? Do you feel welcome? Do you feel like an outsider, you know, how do you feel, and I tell people, you know, when I came to campus, as a professional, when I started in this role, the the warmth and the the kind of welcoming feeling I got from everybody on campus, everyone from our food services, staff, our security guards, our transportation drivers, you name it, faculty, everybody was so incredible. And I think that feeling is, is either there or it’s not there. And I can honestly say at Beacon College, it’s there. And I think that you know that that incredible community that has been built, it only grows you know, even more as of this fall we are we reached our goal of 500 students, which is incredible if you consider our campus and in our size. And so, you know, but I people ask, well, how why did we get there, right? How did we get to 500 students, our community, the feel of our campus, that that is really what does it and and so I encourage people come and take a visit. And they do a ton of my office, we participate in some of these, not all of these, but they do some really great parents weekend’s events, they do some great tours and things where people come by our office. So I’d encourage them to do that. And also feel free to reach out to us. So our Career Development Center website, is actually on the beacon college webpage, check out our website, we actually are in the process redesigning it as well. And I’m really proud of what we’re how it looks now. And so utilize that you can read about our processes, you can read about how we structure internships, you can understand the four year career development model, it’s all up there. It’s not a secret. We’re very proud of what we’re doing, and we want to share it with others.

HR:  

It’s great. Well, I thank the leadership team there yourself, George Hagerty and the others, it’s, they’ve just done a terrific job. Is there anything else we have not covered that you would like to cover today? 

JW:  

I guess just one last thing I’d like to leave people with, it’s just kind of food for thought to kind of chew on as they watch this. You know, we, at the end of the day, I tell the students that we work with that. Some point our life, hopefully sooner than later, our parents have to make a transition from being an advocate for us to an advisor. And that transition from advocate to advisor is so so crucial, because when you’re when you’re in K 12, and my mom was for me, so I can say from experience, when you’re in K 12, we you really need your parents to help advocate for your needs, especially in a public school system, especially if you’re in a school that unfortunately maybe doesn’t provide as many supports as they should provide, you need that parent support 110% Absolutely. However, one of the things that we see that’s challenging for a lot of our parents, once their students get to Beacon is you don’t have to do that anymore. There’s a supportive community that that understands your students wants to work with them. And so making that transition, and it can be a slow one, but making that transition from that advocate to that advisor, where really that student is in control, and they’re advocating, but then they have their parents for their their support and kind of for backup, that is really the goal, at least in my opinion should be the goal for all of our students is transforming that relationship to that more advisory role. And the honest and kind of interesting part about it is if you think about it, for a neurotypical individual or an individual about a learning difference. That is that’s the norm, you know, most of most parents, that’s how our parents are right, as we get older as adults, you know, they’re not advocating for us, we’re doing advocacy, but then we’re coming to them and saying, you know, hey, you know, this happened today. Any advice? You know, a great example I like to give people is my, my wife and I bought our first house, that is the most overwhelming process, getting a mortgage is just terrible. And I’d never done it before. And I had probably call my mom, maybe 10 or 15 times over the closing period of that mortgage, asking questions like, hey, they charged us for this is that normal? Hey, they talked about this word, what does that word mean? You know, I had to learn what PMI that you know, and you know, it No, it’s different than BMS. You know, all of those things. So I think, you know, that is a normal relationship with any parent. And so having our parents and our students intentionally transitioning that role from advocate to advisor is so so crucial and and if nothing else, at the end of the day, that will absolutely lead to more independence on the student’s behalf when they’re given more of that control.

HR:  

What is one final piece of advice you’d like to give to an autistic person in our audience who wants to find a career?

JW:  

To be patient and intentional. For a lot of us finding work is a, it’s a challenging endeavor in and of itself. But it’s also not one that happens fast. The average individual who’s applying for full time employment, it takes six to nine months to find a job. And people with with with on the autism spectrum, neurodiversity are no different. So being patient is a big part of it. But then also being intentional and treating the job process. It’s an active process, right? There’s a lot of effort that you’re going to have to put into it following up with employers, you know, doing applications, you know, doing interviews, all of those pieces, and the more patient you are to persist, and the more active you are to make it be successful. And get to that end goal, the better off you’ll be. So that’s my best advice.

HR:  

Dr. James Williams, Interim Director of Career advisement, development and partnership at Beacon College. Thank you so much for all you do. And the website for beacon college again is… 

JW:  

Beaconcollege.edu. 

HR:  

That’s easy to remember. Thank you so much for being with us. Keep up the great work. 

JW:  

Thank you