From College to Career: Get Hired! is a new course teaching graduating students how to land an interview, get hired, and begin their careers in journalism. Students engage in a variety of activities and simulations to figure out where they are now, and where they want to go.
In a recent session this fall, Professor Jeannie Ahn prepared the class for an upcoming internship fair. As students filed in, Ahn reviewed the topics for the day and then asked for a volunteer to give an “elevator pitch” about themselves.
A junior named Andrew raised his hand. “Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Hernandez,” he said. “I am a junior majoring in emerging media with a minor in sociology. I specialize in video production.” He paused, and Professor Ahn encouraged him to keep going. “You’re doing really good,” she said. Andrew continued, “I specialize in video production, screenwriting, video editing and I personally enjoy post-production work and audio production.”
Professor Ahn acknowledged Andrew for doing something that was very hard and very uncomfortable with people looking at him, and the other students applauded. Ahn used the moment to encourage the students to have an air of professionalism, so they’d stand out at the fair.
“Literally, this is practice,” she said. “You’re practicing, revising your resume over and over and over. You’re practicing interviewing over, and over, and over.”
Hunter’s Career Center has only two advisors for the entire undergraduate student body, and Professor Ahn recognizes that career prep is hard for students to balance with all their other responsibilities with school, family and work. “I think this is really a class that helps people connect the dots because I treat this like this is their job,” she says. “They’re coming to their job.”
Tasnia Akhter, a senior majoring in film describes the class as “life changing,” and says she wishes she could have taken it earlier because “it really prepares you for figuring that out, what career you want to do.”
