Staff Spotlight

  This week the Concordian focuses its attention towards CU’s very own Tammy Monk, Director of Student Career Services. Her job deals with preparing student for the next step after graduating from college. This involves giving them an idea of the real world situations such a getting a job, writing resumes, or possibly going to Graduate school. Currently, Tammy has been Director of Student Career Services here at Concord for seventeen years. She has had quite the journey leading up to where she is now. After graduating from college, Tammy taught school for a few years. She also worked in Admissions for some schools as well. Later, she went back to college for a Master’s degree in College Student Personal. And around that time, she received a job offer from the University of Charleston. Tammy then worked with the  Higher Education Policy, which is now called the Higher Education Policy Commission. Soon after, she got news of a job offering here at Concord, which she took.

     Tammy describes college as not exactly a real-world experience, though in some ways involve a lot of real-world elements. One frustration or challenge she sees with the position she has is that lots of students don’t seem to get a good grasp of plans pertaining to their career until their last remaining years of college. Only then do they start to plan ahead for their future lives. She goes on to explain that there’s plenty of things that college students can do during their freshmen or sophomore years to help them get a head start towards the career they hope to pursue. “They don’t think about what [they] could do to make [themselves] stronger candidates.” Tammy likes what she does here at Concord for the students. “Its always been my passion working with students.” Not only that, she likes the campus in general as well. Seeing how she grew up on a farm, it was easy for her to adapt to the small, isolated setting of Concord University. If the opportunity arose for her to work at a different university, perhaps a higher level one, she would decline. She believes she’s very fortunate to be working at Concord University. When asked if she might have a message of advice towards the students, she said that students be giving all the effort possible while here in college. They should consider that their money and financial aid are at work. Though she added they should also have some fun while they are having the college experience.

Anything else that could be said is that she is here to help guide students on their winding path from college and into real life as everybody else knows it. When in doubt, Tammy Monk is a recommended person for showing you the way through a confusing career plan.