Nursing and Engineering Careers

							                                                                                        …or you can use the keyword search. Notice what happens
                                                                                        when we enter just the start of the keyword ‘mechanical’ in
             Subject Specialists Librarians                                             our efforts to find mechanical engineers:
                          For
                 Research Instruction
                    (936) 261-1535                                                                                                                        Nursing and Engineering
     Steve Shaw                                                                                                                                                   Careers
     Head Reference and Information Services                                                                                                                          @
     History, Philosophy, Sociology and Social Work)
     sjshaw@pvamu.edu (936) 261-1529                                                                                                                       John B. Coleman Library
     Bob Grundy,
     Reference and Instruction Librarian
     (Juvenile Justice, Psychology & Education, Military
     Science, and Political Science)
     rsgrundy@pvamu.edu (936) 261-1517

     Kimberly Gay, Reference and Instruction
     Librarian                                                                          Lets simply choose ‘mechanical engineers’ and follow that
     (Business, Communications, Journalism, Languages                                   to Texas. What we find is a page that contains the wages
     & Literature)                                                                      we can expect for both national and state, broken down by
     kmgay@pvamu.edu (936) 261-1506                                                     annual or hourly, the employment trend (is the field growing
                                                                                        or shrinking), skill sets and knowledge, the tolls and soft-
     Chieko Sato,, Reference and Instruction                                            ware you would be expected to be proficient with, related
     Librarian                                                                          occupations and a fantastic set of web resources.
     chsato@pvamu.edu (936) 261-1507

     Yubao Li
     Reference and Instruction Librarian                                                Another thing you can do is select the ‘state profile’ for each
     (Agriculture, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science,                                state. Here is some sample information about Texas:
     Engineering, and Mathematics)
     yli@pvamu.edu (936) 261-1518

     Chieko Sato
     Reference and Instruction Librarian
     (Architecture & Community Development)
     chsato@pvamu.edu (936) 261-1507
                                                                                        What do these ‘ranking’ links tell us?
   Elizabeth Brumfield
   Distance Services Librarian
   (Northwest Campus, Dallas Campus and
   other distance programs)
   ejbrumfield@pvamu.edu (713) 790-7282                                                             If you have any other questions:

                                                                                                                                                                 Dr. Rosie L. Albritton
                                                                                                      Reference Desk: 936.261.4535                            Director of Library Services
                                                                                                        askalibrarian@pvamu.edu                                  John B. Coleman Library
                                                                                                                                                               Prairie View A&M University
                                                                                                      http://www.pvamu.edu/Library

                                                                                                                                                            Information Services (936) 261-1535
 The John B. Coleman Library Reference & Information Services Department.:
from left to right - Bob Grundy , Kimberly Gay, Steve Shaw, Yubao Li, and
                                                                                                                                                                Askalibrarian@pvamu.edu
Chieko Sato.
                                                                             2/08 rla
                                                                                                                                                             http://www.pvamu.edu/Library
                  John B. Coleman Library                    Once you have chosen ‘browse,’ there are a number of
              Nursing and Engineering Careers                things we can do:                                              The handout accompanying this one has much more
                                                                                                                            information on general employment sites and places to
This project may seem daunting, but there are a lot of
                                                                                                                            contact, but you can also stop by the Reference Desk
sites out there to help. The government has some great
                                                                                                                            in the Library for more help.
resources, and we’ll look at those.

Because we are not using Library databases, you still                                                                       Let’s go back to the drop-down menu from the
need to be critically aware of the sites we go to; how are                                                                  home page again:
we sure they are reliable? This is one very important re-
search skill: being able to understand what resources best
suit your needs.

This is one of the best sites to start with:

http://www.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/JobSearch.aspx

This is a conglomeration of various other sites that were                                                                   Select this and click ‘go.’
previously in different places. It’s sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Labor, and brings together exactly the in-                                                                    Find the phrase ‘occupation information’ and click that.
formation you need.
                                                                                                                            Next select the profile:
Be sure to pay attention this drop-down menu right at the
top of the page:
                                                             Stay with a job title of engineering, and then we have to
                                                             choose a part of Texas to look in. Using the drop down
                                                             box below, let’s select the Houston / Galveston region:
                                                                                                                            Expand the Architectural and Engineering tab:




We will go through the State Job Banks, then America’s
Career InfoNet. They’re all found on this site.

So first, find the ‘job bank’ link at the top right of the
                                                             We can choose any of these jobs and explore the working
page:
                                                             conditions, requirements and necessary education. You
                                                             would need to register if you wanted to have access to the            If you need research help or have any
                                                             contact person’s information and actually apply for any of             questions, call the subject specialist:
                                                             these jobs.                                                                        Steve Shaw
                                                                                                                                     Reference and Instruction Librarian
                                                             For this project, you may not need to do this, but in the            (936) 261-1529 - sjshaw@pvamu.edu
                                                             future when you graduate and start looking for that first                                or
                                                             ‘real’ job, it will be worth it to investigate some of these                   Email A Librarian at
                                                             sites.                                                                        Askalibrarian@pvamu.edu