UIC’s 6th Career Fair
Connecting with Alumni and Broadening Horizons
On Saturday, May 13, students across all UIC majors gathered in New Millenium Hall (Sinchon Campus) for UIC’s sixth Career Fair. Professor Chad Denton, Director of UIC’s Career Development Center, opened the event by asserting that the fair is “one of the most important career events that we hold at UIC. For those of you who are here, you have made the right decision and you have been proactive. It is very important to talk to your seniors and ask for advice.” Indeed, this event is considered the best opportunity to meet and connect with UIC alumni, as Professor Michael Kim also noted: “This is a really unique event at UIC. You get to see where students go after they graduate, and they go everywhere.”
The first part of the Career Fair was an introduction to six different job sectors: the law and public sector, marketing, finance, consulting, media and public relations, and IT and start-ups. More information from alumni followed: lawyer Jung-hwan Jeon briefly talked about the pros and cons of going into law while Yoo-hee Choi, a big data analyst who is also pursuing a master’s degree in engineering at UC Berkeley, described the different computer languages one can learn for data analysis and shared about the start-up ecosystem. Won-joon Jang, a foreign exchange trader at HSBC, talked about the various roles in the sales and trading business and what each role entails. Min-jeong Kim from Innocean Marketing explained the difference between marketing and advertising, as well as the skills and traits one needs to work for a big agency. Lastly, Dae-wook Kwon from McKinsey & Company answered key questions on management consulting such as who the large players are, what the benefits are, and how students aspiring to this field should prepare. Our alumni were as honest as possible about their jobs and provided candid portrayals of each career path.
Following the introductions of each sector, students chose one of interest and broke up into different rooms with two to five alumni in each group. As students engaged more personally with the alumni, some of the questions and topics raised were on work culture, how to get started in respective industries, internships, and preparing for job interviews. This concluding part of the Career Fair allowed one-on-one interaction with the professional UIC alumni and provided great insight into the different jobs as students considered more into their fields of interest.
The UIC Career Fair is one of the best opportunities for students to find out more about career options after college, and connect with alumni while doing so. UIC has a great body of alumni working in a diverse range of fields who are always willing to help and give advice to current students. It is highly recommended that students participate and make the most out of the Career Fair.
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