Students of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences finally got their wish: Last weekend at RPI’s first Media Arts Career Festival, they were given the chance to "rub shoulders" with corporate representatives.
"The students showing up here are probably going to be working for us in the future and near future," said Reed Sparling, editor-in-chief of the Hudson Valley Magazine.
The primary focus of the career festival was to give students an opportunity to network with high-ranking corporate officials.
The Career Development Center and the School of H&SS co-sponsored the media arts festival at the Heffner Alumni House.
The festival was a two-day event consisting of a reception and a display of student-produced poems and computer artwork on Friday and several workshops mixed with opportunities to speak with industry representatives on Saturday.
On Friday, Dean Winkler ’81 delivered a lively keynote address. The next day instead of highlighting the career opportunities in media arts as he did on Friday, he let the audience lead in a question-and-answer session.
"It’s really cool that this many students are interested in media arts,"said Winkler, who graduated with a degree in communications.
Dean of H&SS Faye Duchin said, "We’ve been preparing this for a whole year because we felt it was necessary. This event focused just on electronic media employers, allowing students to develop relationships with them, so employers will come back to the [NSBE/SHPE] career fair and recruit."
Saturday’s portion of the fair was dedicated to workshops ranging from how to get your foot in the door at an advertising firm to how to create an electronic portfolio.
The timing of the workshops caused a few headaches for students.
Communications student Laurie Rangasawmy said, "The concurrent workshops were good, but it made it hard to get the most of them. When presenters went over the forty-five minutes, it made you late to other workshops. Trying to sneak [into] a ‘rubbing shoulders’ session was difficult at times because presenters were late to the meeting rooms, and there were other workshops that I wanted to attend." Rangasawmy suggested for next year that organizers structure the sessions so that students can attend more workshops.
Robert Provost, director of marketing at the Times Union, talked about the importance of technology within media. When asked why he felt it necessary to come to the career festival, he said, "Because young people are important and likeable and have something to say worth listening to."
During a "rubbing shoulders" session, Provost revealed that knowing basic fundamental skills is crucial for college students. More than once he has received e-mail from internship candidates with typographical and grammatical errors as well as "smiley" faces. The "Instant Messenger" age of technology, he said, has misled students, making them believe that it is okay to include this familiar discourse in professional e-mail.
Many were impressed by Provost’s presentation, including event organizer Donald Moore. "It was one of the most content-rich presentations," commented Moore.
Moore was also very encouraged by the interest and the turn out at the festival. "Attendance is good—200 students pre-registered and there are 130 students here, he said. The quality of presenters is fabulous. The presenters understood their audience and two of three did what good presenters should do."
Presenters included Arthur Andersen, Crossroads Films, Disney, Experion Systems, Prime Technologies, the Times Union, and eight other companies.
"We deliberated a lot to get people who were high up, who were very well connected, and would relate to the tough job market," said Duchin.
Representatives from a number of campus departments came together to organize the festival including: Donald Moore, director of H&SS external communications, Erin Glasheen, director of undergraduate programs for the Department of Arts and the Department of Language, Literature, and Communication, and Diana Delker, senior associate director of the CDC.
"[The organizers] have heard from a number of students and RPI faculty and are seriously taking under consideration doing this again," concluded Moore.
