Guest blog by Gabriela Morales, Director of Student Success at Missouri Valley College 

Missouri Valley College is a private, liberal arts college located in Marshall, Missouri. Missouri Valley’s mission is, “Guiding students to succeed through personal instruction and intellectual inquiry.” It is our goal to provide a quality education and help prepare our students for life after college and as they obtain a career upon graduation. In partnering with The DeBruce Foundation, we have added Career Literacy and Career Preparation to the forefront so our students can be prepared and qualified to enter the workforce upon graduation. 

Building Career Literacy with The DeBruce Foundation 

Our partnership with The DeBruce Foundation has given Missouri Valley College the opportunity to introduce Career Literacy and Agilities^© to students on our campus and it has been nothing short of beneficial and exciting for our students and staff members. We have a specialized Career Exploration Seminar course that all first time freshmen who are enrolled at Missouri Valley College are required to take as part of their orientation to college life. From there, we have been able to expand to introducing the Agilities and Agile Work Profiler^© to our sophomore, junior and senior students. 

Having access to these materials allows our students to gain more knowledge about different careers and a path to follow, or open doors to understanding what they can do with their careers. They learn how utilizing their Agilities will tie into their everyday life and aspirations. It even gives them an opportunity to utilize the Agilities language on their resumes and cover letters to make themselves even more marketable to employers. 

Career Exploration Seminar  

As Missouri Valley College freshmen arrive on our campus, they are registered for an eight week required course that is centered solely around The DeBruce Foundation’s Career Literacy tools and related information. Students in this class take time to understand the Agilities in a variety of ways, in the form of group assignments, individual assignments, and in-depth class discussions! We start the class by introducing and understanding what the Agilities are and how they can be used in everyday life. One of the first activities our students complete is the Agilities Walk. The Agilities Walk allows students to get into groups and present on a specific Agility to their classmates; not only are they learning about the Agility they are presenting on, but the Agilities their classmates present, too.

Part of understanding their Agilities comes with setting themselves up for the future and what they want their future to look like. One of the activities we complete with our class is Draw Your Future with Agilities^©. Implementing Draw Your Future with our students allows them to think about their goals and what steps they need to take to achieve those goals. This part of the course is so fun because not only do we get to see our students’ goals but we also get to see them in a creative light! 

As we continue to navigate through the course, an important aspect we focus on is the Career Explorer Tools^©. Utilizing the Career Explorer Tools allows students to really explore their Agilities, learn how their Agilities work towards their career choice or identify a potential career path they had not ever considered. At this point in the class, the students are well aware of what the Agilities are and exactly what they mean. We also utilize the Career Explorer Tools in our Capstone Presentation assignment. In this assignment, students are required to identify their top three Agilities and choose a career choice they might never have known. From there, students are required to create a PowerPoint on the career they found and present this information to their classmates. 

Being a part of this partnership with The DeBruce Foundation and being able to provide our students with fully funded resources to assist with their growth and development as individuals is extremely rewarding. One of the best parts of teaching the course is when we are able to see the light go on in our students’ minds when it all clicks and they realize how this will benefit them. We express our deepest gratitude to The DeBruce Foundation for working with our institution and are excited to continue providing this course to our students!