This school year has been filled with both highs and lows. There were times when as a community, Nichols was thriving, and other times we were struggling to get by, not unlike everywhere else. With that being said, the Career and Professional Development Center was still able to successfully host 9 different events combined over the fall and spring semesters!
Across both semesters, we saw just under 1,000 students and alumni in attendance for our events totaling at 994. Our numbers skyrocketed during the spring semester as over 740 students attended the three events held.
Everyone in the CPDC would like to thank all those involved in the preparation and execution of all our events. We are also very thankful to all our external participants and attending organizations who attended. Most importantly, the students and alumni in attendance made it all worth it. Thank you!
Fall Recap:
The Fall 2020 semester kicked off with the Accounting & Finance Career and Internship Fair. Based on attendance, this was our largest event during the FA 2020 semester. Organizations hosted group sessions and one-on-one meetings with accounting, corporate finance and investments, finance, mathematics, economics, international business and general business students to share details on their company, internships and/or full-time accounting and finance-related opportunities.
We then hosted the Sophomore PDS Virtual Open Houses; Sophomore PDS students attended guided information sessions to learn about what services the Career and Professional Development Center provides and what resources are available to all students.
The next event during the fall was the first in a series titled Career Exploration Event: Creative Careers. Students with a concentration related to English, history, marketing, digital & social media marketing, marketing analytics, communication, or entrepreneurship were able to chat with professional guests about their creative career paths/professions and/or businesses. One student commented, “The speakers were kind and informative. I felt like they wanted to be here and cared about our success and growth”.
Our next event was From Senior in College to Freshman in Life! Jeff Thomas ’12 and Taylor Ross ’13 returned to provide unique perspectives on how to make a successful transition into life after Nichols College. Topics included: Pre-Graduation Planning, Career Paths, Personal Finances, and Investments/Retirement Planning. Both Jeff and Taylor gave the event a 5/5 overall rating while the 82 students in attendance gave the event a 4.71/5 rating.
The Fall semester wrapped up with two different events. Career Exploration Event: Helping Professions was our second event held in our series. This was a fabulous opportunity for Nichols students with a concentration related to criminal justice, criminal justice management or psychology to speak with contacts within these specific industries. Of the 23 participants who attended the event, 20 rated the event an overall rating of 4.41 out of 5.
The last event of the semester and final event of the series was titled Career Exploration Event: Managing the Herd. This was a brand new event this fall and was extremely successful! With so many wonderful management-related concentrations here at Nichols, such as human resource management, hospitality management, sport management, and management, we wanted to create a specific event to focus on these majors. One student had this to say after the event, “Awesome event that really got us to be able to ask the questions on our mind to people already in the fields we are looking to get into”.
Spring Recap:
Our spring semester had half the amount of total events during the fall, yet it almost had three times the amount of student attendance! During the spring, the CPDC hosted the Sophomore PDS Virtual Open Houses, the 2021 Nichols College Career & Internship Fair and rounded out the school year with the annual Sophomore Shout Out Event Series.
This year’s Sophomore PDS Virtual Open Houses, we had 242 students attend. Coming in as the second-highest attended event of the year, we had over 50 students give the event an overall rating of 5 out of 5. Transitioning from the second-highest attended event we moved on to our highest attended event during the school year!
The CPDC’s largest event of the year, the 2021 Nichols College Career & Internship Fair, was held on February 16th. With over 300 students in attendance, the career fair was an excellent opportunity for Nichols students and alumni to meet and connect with over 50 different attending organizations! There were 310 participants in attendance. Receiving a 4.61/5 rating from organization hosts, one host even had this to say, “I liked knowing who had RSVP’d for each session and being able to read their resume prior to the meeting.”
Our last event held during this year was our annual Sophomore Shout Out Event Series. This year Nichols celebrated the class of 2023 for making it halfway through their undergraduate careers. The overall success of the event was rated 0.17 higher than in 2020 as it went from 4.43/5 in 2020 to 4.60/5 in 2021. One alumnus couldn’t help but reminisce about their own experience attending, “This is a great event that the Nichols CPDC team offers every year. I remember going to the Sophomore Shout Out event in person and made a few good connections there. Hopefully, we can continue to have this event held in-person in the years to come.”
Thank you to all our participants in our CPDC 2020-21 events! We can’t wait to jump into Fall 2021 with hopefully more in-person attendance. Happy Summer!
