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.