After charting a career path through higher education, alumna now helps others launch their careers

Education has woven itself into Dr. Katie Jolicoeur’s career from the beginning.

A first-generation college student, she enrolled at St. Cloud State University in part because of its affordability and its location being fairly close to her hometown. While she initially explored a couple different programs of study, she decided on a history major after studying abroad in Alnwick, England, and connecting with the history professor there.

“I chose SCSU because it was affordable and close to home, but ended up loving it because my history faculty were so dedicated to student success,” Jolicoeur said. “They are why I ended up where I am at today.”

In particular, former SCSU history professor Dr. John Ness had a major impact on Jolicoeur’s educational journey.

“First-generation students were kind of a minority then on campuses, but he spotted me and he was able to help me. That's why I got through in four years and graduated, and that's why I went on for a master's degree,” she said. “I credit him with my career. I probably didn't end up where he thought I'd end up — he probably thought I'd end up in history — but I still ended up in a really good place because of him.”

After graduating from St. Cloud State in 2005, she went straight into a master’s program in medieval studies at Western Michigan University, with the hopes of one day being a history teacher. After completing her master’s, Jolicoeur took a full-time job working at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs coordinating the front desk and internship program for the school’s career services department.

“I had to coordinate internship paperwork for 3,000 students a year and get them enrolled in their credits. They also needed somebody to teach career development and planning who has a master’s degree, so I started teaching there and coordinating internships, and I moved up into a senior career advisor position fairly quickly in 2008,” she said. “But that was right around when the economy crashed. So I was basically working with a lot of students who wanted to get into government nonprofits, and the bottom just fell out for them. It was a crash course in career advising people when they're kind of at their lowest.”

From there, Jolicoeur took a position as an assistant director in career services at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Business. Amidst her work there, she started pursuing her PhD and ultimately decided on the leadership studies doctoral program at UNL. She eventually started working at Southeast Community College as an associate dean, but by the time she got to the dissertation phase of her PhD, Jolicoeur decided she needed to step away from working to focus on her degree. As she completed her doctorate, Jolicoeur’s husband was offered a job in Mankato, Minnesota, and the couple decided to take the opportunity to relocate. In fall 2024, Jolicoeur became the director of career services for Minnesota State University-Mankato.

“I found my career by accident, but based on my experiences with SCSU, I knew I wanted to work in higher education,” she said. “I am passionate about what I do because my work connects students to their passions through things such as internships, volunteer opportunities and careers.”

Jolicoeur spends her workdays creating pipelines for students looking for internships, part-time work, or full-time positions following graduation. She considers herself to be “on the front line” helping students get hired into their first jobs, while also working with employers to retrain or up-skill their current workforce. Networking is integral.

“I really would love to see ultimately every student who graduates from this university engage in some form of skill-building or career development where they're thinking about their future and purposefully trying to gain a variety of skills. Even if they don't have a specific career in mind, they can be ready to enter a wide variety of jobs,” she said. “A lot of jobs that are going to exist in four years, they don't exist right now. So trying to prepare students for careers that don't exist yet is kind of tricky. But part of that would be to make sure there are internships and externships, part-time jobs, research opportunities — are there opportunities available for every single student on this campus to either have one or more of those experiences before they graduate? Because those are where they're going to get some of that skill-building.”

Jolicoeur also hopes students considering going into the higher education industry realize how much opportunity there is.

“If you're not going a traditional tenured professor route, there's a lot of opportunity, and it's a very diverse field. Career services itself is diverse. You can go and focus in employer relations and events, or you can focus on student development, career development and really focus a majority of your time leading workshops and working with students individually or working with student groups,” she said. “Even just within my small little area, there's a wide variety of things to do. But looking at higher education as a whole; when you're a student or a new graduate, I don't think you realize the ginormous network that exists at a university just to support students.”

While her career has evolved from what she originally pictured during her time at St. Cloud State, Jolicoeur said the University still played a significant role in getting her to where she is today.

“I’m very proud to be a Husky. I would encourage any students or alumni to reach back to the University,” she said. “Donations don't have to be just money. It can be time and effort. It could be connecting with a student. It could be getting your employer to sign up for a career fair. All of that helps and plays a significant role in student and university success.”