Janes Dreamweaver, the director of Fitness and Wellness at Truman State University, recently created a recreation career webpage for students who may be interested in the field of campus recreation upon graduation. Below, he shares what sparked this idea and his advice for creating a similar offering.
Campus Rec: What sparked the idea to create this resource?
Janes Dreamweaver: The idea came from an unusual amount of extra time devoted to improving our website due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I kept brainstorming ways to make our website more user and content friendly for students interested in our department or services. I realized from recent experiences, prospective and current students may not be aware of our professional field as a potential career option. Unfortunately, sometimes students learn about recreation in their last year or final semester and have essentially missed all the wonderful employment opportunities and professional development experiences our department has to offer.
I knew we could create an online resource which students might access on their own while researching fulfilling career options. The goal of our recreation careers webpage is to draw more interested students into employment within the student recreation center, promote them to leadership roles if possible, and finally, to encourage and assist them in pursuing a graduate assistantship position.
CR: Why should others consider providing this resource?
JD: Other departments might consider a similar webpage to encourage more students to consider recreation as a full-time professional career. If they are able to see the steps involved in becoming a professional and have the academic resources at their fingertips, they may be more likely to go for it. It’s also really beneficial to see the degree requirements at your institution and which majors and minors might be available to you.
CR: What advice can you share from the experience?
JD: If you have an idea you think would be truly helpful to your students, start with little steps and remember, little steps lead to big steps. As the content on the webpage came together, it was intuitive to add links and keep brainstorming information which may have been omitted. The webpage has already undergone 77 revisions. However, it’s really rewarding to know the content is now available to students who may be searching for it.
View the Recreation Career Webpage.
