Before we begin, like the title says, this is about the career fair that was in Crown Hall for the architecture students. This side of the semesterly career fair is hardly ever seen by those outside of the College of Architecture (CoA), so I might as well give you all an insight on what it looks like. I will start off with my praises of the fair then end this story off with my critiques.
First off, I would like to praise Career Services for their amazing effort in getting some truly incredible firms to attend. Corgan, Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM), Colliers, and many other incredible firms were in attendance during the career fair. Every company that bought a table was there for the entire time as well, so props to both Career Services and the firms for being there for all the job and internship hungry students. This lineup of companies was also incredibly diverse, with anything from interior design, architecture, landscape architecture, and even urban planning. Year-over-year, the landscape architects and interior designers of our college are left behind, so it was nice to see the inclusion of those fields in this fair, which, from what I could tell, was incredibly successful.
Second, the amount of employer representatives was a good balance for the amount of students that arrived. An average of about two to three members for each firm is exactly what should be done to meet the needs of the students in my opinion. This also helped students to get around to firms far quicker. I was able to get to nine employers today, which was a record broken from last year where I managed to meet six employers. This also made me more confident that, next year, maybe we could get even more employers to attend if we keep this trend going.
Now, here are some critiques from me regarding the fair. A roughly four-hour period that lands during the start of lunch hour and takes you to early dinner cannot be supplemented by just water. It is simply too little for the time period that is selected for the fair. Some students skip lunch entirely in order to be in attendance of the fair. Having a small snack bar would suffice for the students, even if all it has is some snack bars and sweets, this would be worlds better than just having water. Walking, standing around, and talking to people for almost non-stop for four hours can be quite taxing, and having a snack or some sort of flavored drink as well would make a world of difference for students. I think this is something that should be done next time for all sites of the career fair.
Another critique I have is the excess open space that could definitely be used for more tables. I think that, if more firms were in attendance, more students would be attending. One of the biggest flaws I saw this time and the last time I was in the career fair were the long lines. This issue could be solved by simply offering students even more options and creating a way where firms are not bombarded by 20 students at a time. It’s either making use of the space with more firms or finding an alternative to just letting students bunch.
Overall, this was quite a good career fair compared to the last one I attended, but there were definitely flaws in some aspects of the system. Career Services has done an excellent job in improving the career fair on the side of the architecture students, but there are fronts that I believe still lack. Understandably, a small department can only do so much, but, as I always say to my friends, utilizing every internal resource here is vital. Otherwise, thank you to Career Services for hosting a much improved architecture career fair.