The Engineering Expo

Photo with Chad and Madeline from Marathon Petroleum Corporation

The Engineering Expo at the Ohio State University took place in on the 25th and 26th of September. It was an engineering students-exclusive career fair where only companies offering engineering positions attended.

I attended a summer engineering program for minorities called PREFACE. During the program it was heavily expressed the importance of career fairs since students are able to get internships and co-ops through them. In order to prepare for the career fair, I attended several resume and elevator pitch workshops. I felt like I needed to get an internship because of how much I was told internships matter resulting in me going to these workshops and getting advice from to several people.

During the Engineering Expo I talked to seven different companies. 4 out of seven told me that they were not hiring freshman or Industrial Engineers. I was underwhelming seeing people having long conversations with recruiters  and laughing, while I was having 5 minutes conversations. By the time I talked to the sixth company I wanted to leave. I already had talked to all the companies I wanted to, so it did not matter if I stayed or not. But I decided to do research in one more company and go back in. I did. It actually went really well, the recruiter took my resume, wrote notes on it, and said they will consider me.

I do not think I will get an internship from this career fair. However, all the time I spent preparing for this event will help me during the spring career fair.  

During the whole process I surely felt outside my comfort zone, however, once at the career fair, I turned all the nervousness I felt into excitement. My first conversation was decent and not as bad as I though I would be. I believe that if I tell myself something many times I will start to believe. So if I told myself how nervous I was and I was not going to be able to do it. I was going to have a mediocre experience.

One thing I plan to do for future career fairs is to try and have a casual but job-related conversation with the recruiters. I saw many people doing this and their conversation would go on for more than 10 minutes. I was only following my elevator pitch, but once that was over, if the conversation even lasted that long. I did not have much to say. I do not know if all the engineering freshman went to the career fair. I think the fact that, I attended the career fair puts me ahead of those who did not, since, I know what to expect out of it.  

Even though I felt underwhelmed during the career fair, it makes me feel even more excited about the next one. I know what to work on and what to do differently to maybe get an internship next summer.

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