From first-years deciding on a major to seniors applying to graduate school, the Career Education Center (CEC) is here to help students at any stage of the process.
Chelsea Chase and Max Kalchthaler, assistant directors of the CEC, view career education as more than just polishing resumes or drafting cover letters. Instead, they strive to weave personal experiences into a professional identity and help students find the right words to tell their story.
Sometimes taking the first step into unfamiliar territory, like visiting the CEC, can feel daunting. That’s why Kalchthaler encourages students to begin with something simple: saying hello.
So let’s do some proper introductions — The Beacon sat down with Chase and Kalchthaler to learn more about who they are and how they help students.
Career counseling and development
While both Chase and Kalchthaler are equipped to address any students’ career education questions, they have different areas of expertise. For Chase, her speciality is in career counseling and development, which focuses on finding a career that matches an individual’s lifestyle and values.
“Career counseling incorporates who you are and what's important to you, and how that translates into the world of work,” Chase said. “Like, ‘How does work fit into my life? And how do those two things interact with each other?’”
By centering on personal values, identity and how those qualities can manifest into a career, Chase has helped students navigate a spectrum of career obstacles. These can range from changing majors to navigating post-grad professions when a dream doesn’t pan out.
Chelsea Chase, the Assistant Director, Career Development & Training, in the UP Career Center in Franz 110. Media Credit: Lexi Buckner / The Beacon
Reilly Nycum, the CECs program assistant who has worked with Chase for two years, says that she would have loved to have a resource like Chase when she was in college.
“Chelsea’s really good at providing activities and resources and ideas about how to think about career differently, and all that comes from her being able to pull that out of you,” Nycum said. “I would recommend people going to her if they’re feeling like, ‘Gosh, I just don’t know.’ She can help guide that, and I’ve seen her do it, and it’s really cool.”
While counseling and human development have been passions of Chase’s since college, her path to UP included several career pivots. Much like the career questions she now helps students navigate, Chase wrestled with her own as she searched for a profession that best fit her life.
From waiting tables to considering a future as a marriage and family counselor, Chase ultimately found her calling in career counseling. She earned a master’s in counseling psychology and counselor education and went on to hold a variety of career-focused roles after graduate school.
Her experience includes supporting individuals facing sudden job loss at Northwest Family Services and developing career preparation programs at the Community College of Aurora that promoted women into male-dominated fields.
Then Chase landed on The Bluff.
“There's a collaborative spirit among folks on campus that makes my work much more rewarding,” Chase said. “It's really the community and the students that make this place special.”
Outside the CEC, Chase is an avid New York Times puzzler — Wordle and Connections are some of her favorites — and a mother to her five-year-old daughter, Amelia, who she says is “just the best.”
Her free-time, which she once spent going dancing with her husband or watching the Denver Broncos, is now filled with time together as a family of three and learning about her daughter’s everchanging obsessions (horses, for now). And motherhood, she says, has changed her for the better. While Chase has always been patient and caring, she believes that becoming a mother has deepened her sense of empathy which she carries into her work with students.
That same empathy shapes how she hopes the UP community experiences the CEC: as a place of support and care.
“We meet you where you are,” Chase said. “We're here for you whenever you're ready, and it's never too early to get started.”
Telling your professional story
As a dynamic duo, where Chase specializes in finding the right path for you, Kalchthaler’s expertise is in articulating that drive in job applications.
“I love helping students figure out how to tell their professional story,” Kalchthaler said. “Seeing that fear of the unknown get replaced with the tiniest bit of confidence or willingness to be like, ‘I can do this’ — best part, all day.”
Kalchthaler first came to UP in 2004 as an assistant hall director for Christie Hall, but he didn’t settle down just yet. After earning a master’s in teaching from UP, he moved to Chicago, where he fell in love with career education — and his wife. He returned to The Bluff in 2009 to assume his current position.
One thing Kalchthaler is known for, beyond career education, is his enthusiasm for the outdoors, describing himself as a “general dirt bag.”
Max Kalchthaler, Assistant Director, Career Advising & Program Manager, in UP Career Center Franz 110. Media Credit: Lexi Buckner / The Beacon
In the Pacific Northwest, Kalchthaler’s proximity to the ocean and mountains makes it easy to enjoy his beloved hobbies. For example, one of his “silly projects” or goals is to complete a “surf and turf,” in which he hopes to surf in the morning and then climb in the afternoon.
At his core, however, Kalchthaler is a teacher. And to him, getting to teach in the realm of outdoor adventure is one of his favorite things.
“I define my ideal job as a US Forest Service, back country fly fishing resume advice giver, guy,” Kalchthaler said.
While his ideal job doesn’t exist, Kalchthaler feels grateful that his work at UP gives him the time and resources to be outdoors with his family.
“You're more than what you do to earn money,” Kalchthaler said. “That's an important part of you, and it should be aligned, but it's that plus the activities you engage in outside of [work] that lead to a complete person.”
Family is a central component of his love for the outdoors. If he’s not on an adventure with them, like climbing or camping with his nine-year-old daughter, then he’s accrediting them for supporting him during his wild adventures, including when he turned 44 and completed four activities — hiking, fishing, surfing, climbing — every month for a year.
To complete such intensive activities, though, requires commitment and a willingness to learn new things, which is a quality that his coworkers admire about him.
“Max is very goofy and fun and silly, but he's also so incredibly intelligent, and he's really good at learning from other people, ” Nycum said. “I’ve been able to learn so much from him.”
Learning, after all, is the heart of the career education center’s success — learning about oneself, identifying personal passions and finding ways to integrate those interests and values into a career beyond The Bluff.
So whether a student stops by to talk through academic plans, future careers or simply to bond over a shared love of Wordle or fly-fishing, Chase and Kalchthaler are there to support them — as learners and as people.
Kaylee Monahan is the Copy and Opinions Editor for The Beacon. She can be reached at monahan26@up.edu.
