The Professional Forum

Last week was the highlight of my internship. While I am an intern for the Career Development Office, the majority of my focus has been spent on an event called The Professional Forum. This is a premiere event focused specifically on Liberal Arts Students. The forum was an all day event including: company presentations, panel discussions, career/internship/graduate school fair, as well as a formal networking event at night. My job throughout this internship has been to promote the event through various marketing and advertising campaigns.

Last week, The Professional Forum finally came. I was very nervous before the event started, wondering if our efforts would be successful. I was confident that we had done a wonderful job marketing the event and students were aware of the resources available to them at the forum. I was very proud of a promotional campaign I instigated, which was handing out 500 fortune cookies to students that read inside "Find YOUR fortune at The Professional Forum" and gave details about the event. I got great feedback from students and felt it was an excellent way to advertise our event.

Unfortunately, we got off to a slow start on the morning of The Professional Forum. There were not many students attending the company presentations or the panel discussions, which I found to be disappointing. I felt these were the most beneficial part of the day and I learned a lot by attending. This is something I believe we should focus on next year... promoting these discussions and networking opportunities so students can benefit from the knowledge of employers.

After the panel discussions, I was able to network with many of the companies attending the Forum. We went out to lunch and discussed in depth the opportunities available for Purdue students. I received wonderful feedback from many of the recruiters who loved the format of the event and were excited to sign up for next year. It was great to know that the recruiters could see that this was a premiere event and were impressed enough to reserve a place for next year.

Then came the career/internship/graduate school fair. This was by far the most successful part of the day. We had great attendance from Liberal Arts students who were excited to be at the event. I was pleased with the amount of students who showed up, and also felt that the majority of attendees were polished and professional. This speaks to the success of Lisa and Kate's pre-forum workshops, explaining how to properly behave/dress/network at a career fair. I know personally, I had a lot of success at the career fair and made some wonderful contacts. I heard great feedback from the recruiters, saying they found potential candidates and were impressed by the Purdue students.

One thing we need to work on for next year with the career fair is promoting the graduate schools. I felt that many students didn't realize that there would be such a large number of professional schools. I am thinking a good idea for next year would be to create a brochure, almost a book, highlighting companies, jobs, schools, and internships. These should be handed out before the event so students have an adequate amount of time to prepare for the event.

Finally, there was the professional networking event at night. This was a unique opportunity to meet with recruiters, by invitation only, and get to know them on a more personal level. I think this was a great opportunity and hope that next year, more recruiters will stay and network with students.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of The Professional Forum. Though there are many changes to be made for next year, I was impressed and pleased with our premiere event. I think that in the future this event will continue to grow and become widely known and anticipated among Liberal Arts students.

On a side note, something that this event helped showed me was my passion for event planning. I really enjoyed organizing the details of the day and helping make the day successful for Lisa, the recruiters, and the students. I think event planning is a wonderful field that this internship exposed me to, and I am interested in pursuing it further.