We're spoiled here at DePauw. Students have benefitted from infrastructure upgrades on campus, globally diverse speakers and an ample endowment. We will soon be exercising in new athletic facilities. With a fantastic and involved alumni network, DePauw students certainly reap the benefits of a close campus community and alumni that really do want to help.
One of the latest additions to the repertoire of student resources is Tiger Tracks, a website designed to help students apply for jobs, find internships and connect with the Hubbard Center staff.
Tiger Tracks asks that students submit resumes, cover letters and writing samples to individual student profiles for Hubbard Center staff approval. Once the Hubbard Center approves your work, you are free to apply for a multitude of internship and job offers listed on Tiger Tracks by simply choosing which combination of resume and cover letter you'd like to submit.
I learned of Tiger Tracks last year when I was enrolled in Professor Foss's course, Sophomore Life Planning. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to major in when I got to college and still had no more of an inkling by the time my sophomore year rolled around. I took Professor Foss's class in an attempt to focus in on my specific strengths and interests, and maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I secretly hoped he would outright tell me what to do with the rest of my life.
Tiger Tracks was one of the great unique DePauw resources presented to me in the class. It was a way to streamline my job search and efficiently apply for jobs and internships without also losing my mind.
At the time, this diverse application seemed like a godsend, a common app for the real world. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that Tiger Tracks seemed to be undermining the very core of Professor Foss's course and the idea that networking is the most important factor in a job search.
Tiger Tracks seemed to take the human aspect out of the job search altogether. Using the application to get your resume approved online removes the face-to-face component of the Hubbard Center and teaches students that forming human relationships and networking might not be quite as essential as we were previously told.
As a junior currently in the thick of applying for summer internships and exploring possible career paths, Tiger Tracks ideally is the perfect medium to calm my nerves in this process and even apply for jobs and internships seamlessly. I've been incredibly grateful for every opportunity DePauw has given me, but Tiger Tracks seems to be forming bad student habits. In the long run, TigerTracks is hindering more than helping.
-Rauschenberger is a junior French and political science major from Elgin, Ill.