The art of Career Services

Lucas Budler ’24

After reading The Bachelor a few weeks back and after having recently received funding for my dream summer internship, I’ve had a feeling all week that I couldn’t shake. A feeling that I ought to share the positive experiences I’ve had with Career Services, and to bring to light some of the ways that Career Services truly makes Wabash what it is.

While this piece in some ways might represent a response to an article a few weeks back, by no means am I trying to attack the character, opinions or experiences of the author of the previous opinion. I am merely wanting to highlight how Career Services has tools and abundant support available for all Wabash students, and that their team is available and enthusiastic about building relationships and supporting all of us.

Both of my brothers attended Wabash before me and acted as full-time recruiters to sell me on the somewhat unattractive prospect of coming to an all-male school in the middle of a country and state that I didn’t know much about. They consistently talked about Career Services, the power of the relationships you can form with their team and the support they offer students to plan and develop a professional career while still in school.

Since my freshman year, I’ve already had three internships and three separate professional experiences. The reality, however, is that it was never advertised to me that Wabash would just hand me an available internship each summer, but rather that if I were to seek out experiences and opportunities that Career Services would find the means to support me.

Of my three internships, just one of them has been through a Wabash connection and program. The other two were completely established and crafted by me, with the support of Cassie Hagan. Interestingly enough, if I were to bump into Cassie on campus today and ask her what my major was, she would likely tell me that she has absolutely no idea. And frankly, she probably doesn’t care – because all my experiences have been self-identified, as I believed each would uniquely help shape my career, build new skills and help me figure out what I personally want to do as a history major.

Last summer, for example, I reached out to a company I wanted to work for and established a relationship to plan an internship with them. They had no priorly established formal internship positions.

After this process, I met with Cassie to discuss how to bring it to life, and most importantly, how I could fund it.

Cassie helped me frame and develop the internship around the Dill Fund award, which I applied for and was granted. The Dill Fund has absolutely no requirements or criteria for specific fields, positions or majors – it is a fund open to all students. The Dill Fund awards “selected student internships, independent study or educational opportunities not available at Wabash.”

This is just one of many options students can apply for through Career Services should they not find the right internship through the Wabash network. Internships typically come in the form of business positions, since these industries typically have the necessary funds and programs for interns to have impactful experiences. Should you have interest in a nonbusiness career, there is nothing stopping you from using your Wabash network, finding or crafting your own internship and then seeking support from Career Services to find funding or practical advice.

I’d like to take this opportunity to challenge my fellow students not to see Career Services as a Christmas tree with gifts waiting for you underneath it, but rather, as a resource that we must engage with to build networks and relationships that will offer a personalized experience and an entryway into the professional world.

I still have no idea how I will use my liberal arts, 9-class history major in the professional world. But if it weren’t for Career Services, I would likely be skillless, idea-less and have a resume that boasted about the landscaping I did in high school. Career Services is part of the Wabash DNA, yet in typical Wabash fashion, it requires true engagement and a proactive mindset.

Fraternities”

now, we need to go back a little more than two centuries ago. In the year of 1815, in the little university town of Jena, a few guys gathered to push their idea of a unified Germany— a country that had just gotten rid of Napoleon’s yoke.

“If I were you, I would never ever join a fraternity. You might find a cheap place to stay, but you would sell your soul.”

I overheard these words spoken by a student counselor. Luckily enough, that was not at Wabash, it was not even in the US. Those words were spoken in Freiburg, Germany. How come even student counselors tell students to not live in a fraternity, although they offer rather cheap living conditions, often in fancy houses just around the corner from campus?

I will try to answer this question in a semi-academic, semi-journalistic article in order to let you all draw some conclusions, since I am not the right person to do so, yet I guess you will find some similarities and hopefully a lot of differences.

In German, we have two terms for a “fraternity” (sororities exist, but only in very small numbers): Burschenschaft and Studentenverbindung (if these words steal your breath, ask a trustworthy German student for help).

The easy summary is that every Burschenschaft is a Studentenverbindung, but not every Studentenverbindung is a Burschenschaft. They have a few more specific traditions and a different ranking system. They all have a pledgeship system (pledges are called Füchse (foxes)) and also alumni, (“Old Men” (Alte Männer)) which are an important part of the system when it comes to financing. Their names work the same way as in the US, only instead of Greek letters, they use Latin(ized) names, like Berliner Burschenschaft Arminia.

For certain events, they wear traditional uniforms, or at least small symbols which constitute their membership, and once a year, all fraternities gather and celebrate the overarching brotherhood. One of their most well-known features is fencing. Traditionally participants do not wear helmets and the scars dealt by the opponent are seen as marks of their strength. Sounds cool, right?

In order to understand how German fraternities have ended up where they are

So, they founded a student-only body which would become known as the first German fraternity. As their colors they picked black, red and gold – inspired by a Prussian regiment that had fought against Napoleon. As you all know, these colors are still in use as the national flag of the Federal Republic of Germany, originally utilized by a fraternity!

More and more of those organizations were established throughout what we now call “Germany”, back then a conglomerate of 30ish nations, connected under a rather loose union. Fraternities played an important rule in many attempts to unite those into one nation, but they failed.

In the end, it would be the job of some politicians (the most famous one being Otto von Bismarck) to forge a united German Empire in 1871. After a 56-year long strife for unity, fraternities had lost one of their main founding ideas – and it was not even them who made it happen!

Truth be told, not only national values were a main driving force, but also liberalism became more and more important. The questions as to whether fraternities in Germany should advocate for a rather liberal or national agenda had been going on for quite a while by then, yet national (and nationalist) tendencies were more and more fostered by the political climate of the fin de siècle, World War I and many fraternities were first to follow Adolf Hitler in the 1920s. Maybe the most (in)famous “frat guy” was Heinrich Himmler, one of the main architects behind the horrors of the Holocaust.

Consequently, all fraternities were banned after World War II, and even after their reestablishment in the early 1950s, their numbers remained very low. Nowadays, less than 10,000 out of 1.7 million students are in a fraternity. Nevertheless, national values seem to have never really left them. Until today, fraternities have a rather problematic stance towards women (they are rather seen as the “decorum” of a man at events) and in some of the more right-leaning groups, notions of “race” (a term that is NOT used in German public discourse in the way I am encountering it in the US) are still very predominantly used.

This has created a lot of public backlash and the split of the umbrella organization of all fraternities.

As we can see, most of the fraternities in Germany were once very important in the unification of Germany, but then stopped developing. They did not change or try to adapt to modern times. Now, they are mostly known for scandals where antisemitic songs are sung or publishing position papers about reclaiming further Eastern parts of Germany (now Poland).

Of course, there is also more diversity: Some Studentenverbindungen now define themselves as Studierendenvereinigungen, which is a very similar name. The only difference is that these are open to all genders and often they define themselves through a shared interest (like music or sports) and less through outdated political opinions or the amount of alcohol a single member is able to chug.

So, here we are now with a lot of facts about German history and culture. But how does this apply to Wabash? I guess everyone could find out different things when looking at these details, but to me, the overarching question is: To what extent do traditions manifest who we are and when do they hinder us from evolving?

German fraternities were so focused on traditions that their mindsets were not able to evolve and, although some of them are trying to overcome these stereotypes, their reputation has not really improved in recent years. Another important factor for that is the importance of former members: When alumni turn their back on you and the flow of money stops when you want to try and change traditions, you will run into (financially) dire times. I believe that it is too late for German fraternities to regain their once so innovative reputation and the only thing I hope is that Wabash will not find itself at the same place.

Bachelor

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