Graham Murphy
Reporting correspondent
gmurphy6@jccc.edu
A crowd of students waited outside RC 100 on Feb. 28 to receive a colored name tag and enter the Industrial Technology Career Fair. Each color was designated for a different major, covering six of the seven industrial technology programs offered at the college.
The event hosted 35 local employers, filling the room with students looking for jobs, internships and information. Richard Fort, dean, Industrial Technology, is confident that students will be able to obtain these easily.
“There is job security in industrial tech” Fort said.
He claims that demand is especially high for new workers in the field now, due to a large number of baby boomers that are retiring. He encourages students to go into the field for fulfillment, too.
“Most of the things we do will have an impact on the community,” Fort said.
Alicia Bredehoeft of the Career Development Center said it’s very important for career-seeking students to work on their “workplace skills,” including interview skills, resume building, and self-promotion. These skills have been a part of the Industrial Technology curriculum for about 15 years.
However, this is only the second year that the career fair has occurred and is on the leading end of a wider range of initiatives aimed at increasing collaboration between counseling, the Career Development Center, and various departments at the college.
One of the specific changes made is an increasing emphasis on “cluster counseling,” where counselors are paired with students from a specific major program in order to more specifically serve their educational and vocational needs.
The person primarily responsible for organizing this career fair is Amie Fischer, a counselor who works particularly with industrial technology students. While organizing the event, she communicated with students and faculty in order to decide what would be the most helpful.
All parties involved with the event, including the Industrial Technology department, counseling and the Career Center were pleased with this year’s turnout. Around 200 students participated this year up from 115 last year.
*Alicia Bredehoeff’s name was misspelled in the original publishing of this article. The Ledger apologizes for the error.