I have really enjoyed the past two years of living the college life. Freshman year I made tons of friends that will last me a lifetime, Sophomore year I got a lot more involved in clubs on campus. As a Junior, I am suddenly realizing that it’s time to start working towards getting a job when I graduate.
Luckily, Viterbi has tons of resources to help me out, and last week was pretty productive towards that end, and next week should be even better! On Wednesday, I went to a corporate information session hosted by Abbott, where they talked to us about their internship programs and opportunities at the company. It was a really cool chance to get to talk one on one with company reps who were specifically interested in Viterbi Engineers! This is just one example of the kind of events that happen here all the time! A lot of them are organized by student organizations, and so far I’ve personally been to sessions hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), or the Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering (ASBME), to name a few. These orgs, and the orgs for other majors, are always providing great networking events (and I personally plan to start attending way more!).
ASBME's Annual Corporate Dinner - A BME Specific Networking Event!
Additionally, the Viterbi Career Services (VCS) office provides even more great resources. Taking advantage of last saturday’s away game, I headed over to the Viterbi Career Conference! For this annual event, VCS brings in representatives from various companies, not to recruit, necessarily, but to host workshops on improving our resumes, interview skills, internship searches, and more! There is also a lunch, where you can enjoy a great meal with the corporate representatives and do a little networking! Upperclassmen can even participate in mock interviews. A full list of companies that participated in this year’s conference is available here.
If you look really closely, you can see me helping check people in
I attended two sessions called “communicating with recruiters,” and “building YOU as a brand.” The first session was great because it helped me focus on what I should say at the upcoming Viterbi Career Expo (see below), and the second session helped me learn to set myself apart from other applicants. Both were interesting and helpful, and it was great that they were run by real recruiters, so I obviously know they know what they’re talking about.
Some students and a corporate rep networking at lunch!
The Viterbi Career Expo is perhaps the most exciting thing that VCS runs. USC as a school has a career fair where recruiters from tons of companies come and give students the chance to meet with them, but Viterbi does even better, by having a career expo of our very own, for just engineering companies and students. I’ll be hitting that next week, in addition to VINE, the Viterbi Industry Networking Event, where we essentially speed-date to network with engineering companies before the expo!
Obviously there are a lot of things for me to take advantage of here, so it’s time to clean up my resume and get my game face on! Internships, here I come!
