Career Night

Kristen Golen 10/29/09
34 of Fairfield University’s most established alumni came back to Fairfield’s campus yesterday evening to share many valuable tips that they believed to be essential in today’s business world at the third annual Major Decisions Night.

The 34 alumni represented many successful companies including, NBA Entertainment, Environmental Agency, Ernst & Young, VH1, NYC Dept. of Education, CT Criminal Justice, as well as many other well known companies.

This event is co-sponsored by Fairfield University’s Student Alumni Association and the Career Planning Center. Gretchen Collins, Assistant Director of Career Planning, played a vital role for having over 34 alumni at this evening’s event. Major Decisions Night broke the record for attendance this year for both the amount of alumni and students.

Collins said, “The premise is an interactive working event with the goal to learn about the plethora of opportunities in today’s business world. For students to get to hear what major these successful alumni were, and what they ended up doing with it is a golden opportunity as well.”

Students were not hindered by the variety of majors present at tonight’s event. There were over 18 different majors present, however there were 34 diverse paths that the alumni took after graduating Fairfield.

Erin Stahl, a junior at Fairfield University, has been an active member in the
Student Alumni Association for two years. Stahl said, “Major decisions for Student Alumni Association is a great way for freshmen and sophomores to ask questions that they have about each major, while juniors and seniors can take the advantage of networking with the Fairfield alumni that can certainly relate to the hectic life of a Fairfield student.”

The alumni could not stress enough that students entering the business world must know that as hard as it is to find a job, there are certainly many successful people out there that are looking to help network students that meet the credentials for the job they are seeking.

Frank Riccio, class of 1996, said, “I think that this event is a great idea for the students and alumni, however, I think that it would be more beneficial if the stations were divided by career and not major. I am a perfect example of this because although I was an english major, I am now an attorney!”

A few great tips that alumni had to say as a whole were, be very careful what you put on Facebook, be aggressive, go abroad if you can, and most importantly, find a professor that can serve as a mentor throughout your four years at Fairfield. Having a mentor can not only serve as an incredible resource, but your mentor can potentially be one of your best friends.



Reflective Essay 4:
I personally thought that this was one of the hardest deadlines stories to write. The reason that it was so complicating to write about was because it was an informal event that did not have just one speaker, the event had 34 speakers. These speakers were all Fairfield alumni that had so much information and advice, however, it was up to the student, and myself to go up to them and ask the right questions. The event was quite unique because this event was basically making every student act as a journalist. Students had to ask the alumni certain questions that would get the alumni to give a quality response to their question, just like me! So I found it pretty competitive, even though we asking questions for different reasons.

I took quite a long time coming up with what I wanted to say that would pull in the reader. I decided to use the number of alumni that were present to get the reader’s attention. I am still wrestling with how to make smooth transitions that help make my story flow. Like last time, I briefly skimmed the chapters to our textbook to help with my leads.

As far as the event in general, I learned more than I ever thought I could learn in two hours. This event involved a lot of guts because I went up to perfect strangers, even though we had Fairfield as a similarity. The alumni had nothing but good things to say about their experience at Fairfield. It was nice to hear that although they love their job, Fairfield was the best four years they ever had. As a current student, it’s nice to hear comments like that because it helps me realize although I am stressed with tests and deadline papers , life will never be this fun again, and I will look back and realize how much I enjoyed the classes I took.

Writing this deadline paper made me very nervous because the 10 questions story made me apprehensive to write again, since I did such a poor job on that story. I have to keep in mind that when I ask questions to people that may not be that well known, I have to be aware that I am trying to grab the attention to people that have never met the person I am interviewing. I realize I am still a novice at being a able to write efficient stories, but I am very pleased with how much I have learned so far in this course. Since I am a Communication major I have been thinking of having Journalism as being my minor.