The Vermont Cynic SEPTEMBER 6, 2017
VOL. 134 – ISSUE 2
V TCYNIC.COM
UVM replaces online career network Lindsay Freed Senior Staff Writer A new online service is available for UVM students and alumni looking for job, internship and career advice. The Career Center opened Handshake to student Aug. 24. The new program replaced Catamount Job Link, the University’s former online career-planning platform, director Pamela Gardner said. The Career Center decided
to make the move to the new system in April because the Catamount Job Link was outdated and difficult to use, Gardner said. Handshake is a program designed by former Michigan Technological University students. They had been using a similar system to the Catamount Job Link and saw that students were having difficulty making connections, according to Handshake’s website. The difference between the Catamount Job Link and Handshake is like the d i f f e re n c e between a road atlas and Siri, she said. “If you wanted to drive somewhere 2 5
years ago, you would get a road atlas and have to flip from page to page. You would get there, but it would take work and advanced planning,” Gardner said. “Now, I can sit at my phone in my car and I can be driving and say I want to go to a restaurant between here and Syracuse that’s about an hour away, and Siri will give me options.” The Catamount Job Link was the atlas, providing information about employers and positions but not actively helping students, she said. Handshake has a layout similar to social networking sites like LinkedIn, allowing students to create a profile and fine-tune what information they’ll receive to increase the likelihood of them finding a position, Gardner said. “It will learn from you, so if you go and look at several internships and favorite a couple of them, it will begin to forward you other internships that fit that criteria,” she said. “Handshake actually integrates machine learning into the process so it actually becomes more like a personal assistant for you in a job or internship search.” In addition, employers can see members’ accounts once they’ve been made public, and are able to recruit directly from Ha n d s h a k e, Gardner said. O v e r 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 e m p l oy e r s ,
400 universities and 8 million students and alumni use Handshake, according to their website. There are currently 1,909 students who have activated their Handshake accounts and over 2,000 employers who have registered with UVM, Gardner said. Junior Ian Minearo used the Catamount Job Link to find a work study position, but said he didn’t really have an opinion on it. “I think it’s UVM trying to appeal to the Facebook generation. I think if it was shown by other people to be helpful in getting jobs and internships I would probably use it, but for
now I’m only going to check it out since I know so little about it.” Junior Rachael LaPolice sits with a Handshake representative outside of the Career Center. Handshake has replaced Catamount Job Link as an online UVM job resource. HENRY ROOD/The Vermont
Cynic
Central campus dining hall offers new meal options Kassondra Little Staff Writer Waiting to get a seat at the new dining hall, which offers grilled fish and leafy green salads, students waited in a line that snaked out of the door, passing over onto the Central green. At lunchtime on a weekday, students swarmed both outside and inside the Central Campus Residence Hall, which opened to students Aug. 26. “They made some buttermilk pancakes the other day for breakfast that actually tasted like pancakes, which is unusual for dining hall breakfast,” sophomore Jake Senecal said. “Then they made salmon filets the other day that were phenomenal.” The new dining spot is located on the ground floor of the brand new residence hall, which is home to students in the Wellness Environment (WE). Senecal is a returning member of WE and a resident adviser in the new building. “One of the four pillars of WE is nutrition,” Senecal
said. “It’s critical that we have decent healthy food to eat or we would not be upholding one of the four major Wellness Environment practices that we hold dear.” Senecal said that the director of the WE, Jim Hudziak, specifically advocated for the new dining hall to have healthier food options than other campus dining halls. Within the new dining hall, there are also designated stations to provide for students with common allergies and diet preferences; these stations which can be found in other halls on campus, are known as My Zone and Simple Servings, according to UVM Dining. “We come down here to have meetings,” Senecal said. “It is nice that they have so many options… We can all eat together and have our own meals depending on people’s diets.” The new dining hall includes a variety of meal stations: Fireside, which serves oven-baked pizzas, My Zone, which is gluten and allergy free, and Discovery Kitchen. “The Discovery Kitchen is
Students eat lunch at the new Central Campus Dining Hall Sept. 3. The new dining hall opened for the first time to students Aug. 26. KASSONDRA LITTLE/The Vermont Cynic
focused on engaging students in the three key areas of health, culture and sustainability and answering their questions about where their food comes from and how to prepare it,” said Melissa Zelazny, director of UVM Dining in a University Communications press release. The Discovery Kitchen will be home to a new campus pro-
gram known as WE Chopped, which is a cooking class that teaches UVM students how to prepare healthy meals, Senecal said. “Our vision is to transform students into lifelong learners who make informed choices within our complex food system,” Zelazny said. Senecal said his first-year residents in the new hall have
expressed their satisfaction with the food to him. The dining hall was designed to serve 5,000 meals per day, taking into consideration Central campus traffic and residents of the building, he said. According to UVM Dining, the Central dining hall is open 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.