Career Pathways for Undocumented Students – What Career Services Practitioners Need to Know

Career Level: Basic-, intermediate-, and advanced-level career services, university relations and recruiting, and business affiliate professionals
Competency: Organizing information, logistics, people, and processes toward desired outcomes
Fee: FREE (member); FREE (nonmember);

Summary
Approximately 427,000 undocumented students are enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities.* This population includes talented, diverse, and resilient students who are eager to gain experience and knowledge about their career options, despite their unique barriers. Career services professionals need to be well-educated and equipped to properly advise undocumented students with their career advising needs. Topics that will be covered during this session include:
- Who undocumented students are, including a definition of terms;
- How to properly advise undocumented students with their career advising needs;
- Career pathways available to undocumented students with work authorization (DACA and TPS) and without work authorization; and
- Effective practices and resources you can use to support undocumented students in their career development.
Presenters

Nicole Wesley, Senior Program Manager, Career Supports, TheDream.Us
Nicole Wesley has more than 13 years of professional experience in higher education and has spent the past eight years focusing on career education and development. In her past role as the director of career services at Nevada State College, Wesley focused on scaling and democratizing career education and services for all students while helping build students’ career confidence and social capital. She is passionate about assisting undocumented students with their career advising needs and has created career development resources and opportunities specifically for undocumented students. Wesley also served as a career services liaison to TheDream.US Scholars and sits on the NACE HSI Affinity Group's Serving Undocumented Students subcommittee.