Jessica Chance: Guiding Graduate Students’ Career Development
After earning a bachelor’s degree in writing and performing arts, Jessica Chance faced a familiar crossroads for aspiring actors and writers: Broadway or Hollywood? But she knew she had a deeper calling. “I wanted to help people,” she says. “I wanted to tell stories that serve a purpose for the audience.” Her blossoming stage work, along with her passion to make an impact one on one, led her to pursue a master’s degree in mental health counseling. Now, as the director of the Graduate Center for Career Development (CCD) since 2022, Chance has found a perfect role to combine her skills and help students discover their own professional paths. Plus, she’s still writing and performing.
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The Q&A
As a performer, what role has been the most meaningful to you?
“The most meaningful to date is originating the character of Mandy in The Emancipation of Mandy and Miz Ellie (at Company One in 2010) written by Lois Roach and directed by Victoria Marsh. It was the first full production that I did that really tackled the racial dynamics between Black and white people in the South after Emancipation. It was an incredible experience. That was the most meaningful.”
What is your dream role?
“I would love to write and perform a one-person show. Pretty terrifying, because there’s nobody else on the stage with you. Maybe I’d have two or three other people, but I’d love to do that. Because I think between my career in higher ed and in theater, there’s just so much to tell.”
What attracted you to Babson and graduate career development?
“Babson is not your typical business school. The entrepreneurial aspect of Babson spoke to that. We always say in improv, ‘Yes, and.’ What’s possible? Let’s do this. Let’s play with this. Let’s see what happens. If it falls flat, we do it differently. As I learn more about our graduate students’ and alumni’s goals, there’s so much experimenting and trying and failing and reinventing and pitching yourself. That really spoke to me as a creative and as an educator. I also love our graduate school community and get to lead an incredible team of grad career champions. I’m grateful to learn about where graduate students are from, and their professional accomplishments. They’re not here long but the time they spend here is very special. So, it’s a great fit, especially when meeting members of the Babson community that has that ‘yes, and’ quality to them.”
What do you say to graduate students about how CCD can support them?
“That with our guidance and teaching, we empower them to choose their career path starting from where they are, and curate the resources and programs essential to a successful outcome. No one wants to think they’re going to be a number and get this prescriptive to-do list that everyone gets. We’re going to tailor our delivery, services, and resources to you as the individual, based on the skills and the experience you bring now and who you want to be a year from now. So, we make sure that your time with us via appointments, programming, and recruiting events reflects that, and helps you meet your goals that much sooner.”
“We’re going to tailor our delivery, services, and resources to you as the individual, based on the skills and the experience you bring now and who you want to be a year from now.”
Jessica Chance, director of Babson's Graduate Center for Career Development
What is the biggest challenge facing graduate students today, and how does CCD help overcome them?
“Savvy use of AI, where students are still using their creativity, their originality, their ideas, and using AI as an assistant, as a guide to a better outcome, for whatever work they want to go into. On the job, they must be able to innovate and problem-solve with AI and understand its use across an entire company. This is also a tough job market right now, and our grad students and alumni must stay resilient and that much more connected to Babson alumni networks. Grad CCD helps them through sessions on Gen AI for Career Search, and Alumni Career Talk (ACT), where alumni continue with Babson as lifelong learners. Our growing partnership with faculty has been moving the needle supporting students and alumni. We’ve had faculty members Sebastian Fixson and Ruben Mancha at employer advisory board meetings, so that they can share what Babson students are learning in the classroom and how employers can learn from Babson about AI and the future of work.”
How has career development evolved over the past 20 years?
“It is getting a lot more focus. One of the drivers for me in pursuing career development in higher ed is why students are here. They’re here for something better, something more, something different, and that outcome is a part of that. So, I’m always an advocate for career development. It used to be seen as something you do toward the end of your program, and where you get your resume looked at, go to a career fair, you’re all set. Now, we’re seen more often as educators, too. We’re just different types of educators. There are distinct stages of career development that must be implemented through a student’s entire experience, whether they’re an undergrad or a grad student. The conversations I have with faculty and staff are way more in depth and richer than they were when I first started doing this.”
Two More Questions for Jessica
What does Babson mean to you?
“It means possibility and purpose. Anything is possible. It means constant movement. Here, if you try something and it doesn’t work, you try something different, or you try a different way, but you’re still moving forward.”
Right now, what are you …
- Reading? “I’m reading too many things. I’m reading The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. I try to alternate between fiction and nonfiction, and I’m in my nonfiction phase.”
- Watching? “ ‘White Lotus,’ Season 3. And I just saw Sinners.”
- Listening to? “There’s always so many things. ‘ReLiving Single,’ the podcast about the TV sitcom ‘Living Single,’ and in terms of music, it’s a range—a lot of ’90s R&B, some Cowboy Carter from Beyonce, and Donny Hathaway. I go back and forth, past to present.”
- Doing in your free time? “I love working out and writing. I’m working on a few short stories and trying an outline of what could be a treatment for a TV series based on my time in higher ed.”
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