 My name is Catherine Schwab, and I am Director of SOCAM and Professor of Art History and Visual Culture in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. This event was made possible thanks to funding and support from SOCAM, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, undergraduate admissions, alumni relations, and the Academic and Career Development Center. In the forthcoming hour, we will hear individually from our four panelists, followed by Q&A from the audience. That's you. There will be time at the end to come up and talk individually with our speakers. It's a wonderful opportunity to exchange email addresses and stay in touch and build your network. This evening, Dean Richard Greenwald is here briefly. There he is. But unfortunately, he needs to keep moving this evening because of other events. As a result, we will proceed directly to our program. The printed program is on your chair, and it provides short bios of each of our speakers. Now, please join me in welcoming back to the campus Diane Renfritt, Kalevisa Kovachi, Nicole Finaro, and Dan Bruno. Nicole is going to leave. Can anybody hear me first? Hi, my name is Nicole Finaro. I graduated in the class of 2017, so I'm not too far removed from you guys. When I was here, I have to say I actually started off in a completely different major than I graduated in. I started off as a film and television major in the hopes of getting into broadcast journalism. I always knew I wanted to do journalism, something that involved writing in any capacity. But I quickly found that that wasn't for me. And I changed briefly to English journalism and then found that communication major with a journalism minor was the path for me. I liked the balance of having the theory of communication and then the practical components of journalism. In that time, I have to say I really didn't do anything besides work hard. I worked on the student newspaper in several capacities. I did not have a flashy internship. I worked at the marketing communication department here on campus. So all of my internship experience was right here on this campus. I never left, but what I did do is keep writing and I tried my best to just find as many outlets as I could to keep doing that, whether it was writing or copy editing, whatever it was. I just tried to take advantage of that opportunity and use it to the best of my abilities to get to do what I wanted to do, which, like I said, was always just to write. So I graduated in 2017 and then I waited. I waited for four months to the date from the day I graduated until I got a job offer, which is where I work now at Hearst Connecticut Media Group. For those of you who don't know, Hearst Connecticut owns eight daily newspapers in the state of Connecticut, including the Connecticut Post. You've maybe even seen the weekly newspaper, The Fairfield Citizen, hanging around. We own all of those properties. What I do currently, I work as an online producer, which means that I handle the social media and digital content for the eight daily newspapers. So I'm online all the time. I handle 16 social media accounts every single day. That's a small task, but I work with a really, really great team. And what's interesting about that team is that we are six to seven people deep doing eight daily news sites. I was the youngest person to start on this team, which was really intimidating to start. Everyone was at least five years older than me. And when you're 22 on a team of people that are a lot older than you, it's a little bit intimidating. You feel like you have to prove yourself a lot. But there was an advantage to that. And the advantage was that they made me work to their level. They made me step up and see what they saw and gain their experience and learn through their eyes what problems and challenges can occur throughout the day and throughout the week and throughout the industry. And there are a lot of challenges right now in digital journalism specifically. There are a lot of issues with making money, getting social media engagement. Social media is a huge deal. We all know it. It's everywhere. But right now with news specifically, getting people to trust you and click you on social media is a huge, huge thing. And so having a team that's as experienced as the one that I work with, you get to learn a lot about that and how to address those challenges. And we might not all know the answers all at once, but you're learning it together and that counts for a lot. So that's a little bit about my experience and I think I'm going to pass it off. Great. Okay, it looks like it's finally working. Great. Thank you so much, Kathy, to the staff, to the dean and to all of you guys for being here. And I hope some parents I heard. It's always hard to fall after panels because sometimes people are just so good and I always feel like I regret what I wanted to say. So I want to change my points. But I'll just get right to it. So my name is Cliveesa. When I was at Fairfield University, I studied international studies, politics and French. I graduated in 2014. I got my master's from Columbia in 2017. So I still feel like a relatively recent graduate. Currently, I'm working as the program operation specialist at Friendship Ambassadors Foundation, which is a small nonprofit organization located in Greenwich, Connecticut. We put on different programs from around the world. Currently, I'm working on the Youth Assembly, which is a conference that takes place in New York City in the past. It's been in the United Nations. Now it's taking place at New York University. It brings together 1,000 people from around the world to learn about sustainable development and engage in projects to support the sustainable development goals of the United Nations throughout the world. So just a little bit about me. I want to get right to some main points and some thoughts of advice I would have for you guys. So you're majors and minors, and I want to talk about how that connects your career. When you're here at Fairfield University with your colleagues and with your professors, you learn the basics. You learn how to learn essentially. Your majors will point you in the right direction. So for example, you learn basic knowledge and skills, such as theory, history, methodology, tools. However, after you graduate from Fairfield University, it's up to you to take all of those things and capitalize on them to build upon them to continue learning. So the way that you will do that is through getting more certificates, through lifelong learning, through training on your own, through engaging with your field more and more, writing, starting up your own blog. So know that this is just the very, very start, and it's up to you to take it to the next level after you graduate from Fairfield University. While you're at Fairfield, you also learn a lot about your field and how to engage in certain issues that are taking place, and you're very lucky to be here during very interesting time, very relevant events that are taking place. But after you graduate from Fairfield, again, you have to continue to stay relevant and engage in your field on your own by networking, by being involved in as much as possible. I want to give just a small example of what's taking place in the field of foreign languages and international affairs right now. What's very important is that if you want to get a job in that type of work, what's highly valued is field experience. So working in a different country with relief aid, for example, working on gender equality in different parts of the world, what's also very important about foreign language, especially because I'm brought here by the Modern Languages Department, is again, field experience and immersive experience such as studying abroad, and that's really the best way to learn a foreign language. I want to talk about some career highlights and some challenges and hopefully give some very quick notes on that. So for me, what has been one of the highlights is exactly that. Working out in the field, I was working with the United Nations Kosovo team in Kosovo. At some point, I was working in China with Dartmouth College, did a small consultancy in Indonesia, and so that has always been a great highlight. And I always encourage you guys to travel if you are given the opportunity to do that. You will be asked when you get your first job to work on new and exciting projects. For example, for me, I'm tasked with engineering the move from the youth assembly to different countries, and that's really exciting. So I do encourage you that if you are given the opportunity to work on very new different hands-on projects, take on exactly what my colleague did here. Take on those as a great challenge. Also, another one of the highlights for me has been the teamwork, the people that I've gotten to work with. I'm very blessed that I work with people who are very similar-minded. They have very positive goals about how they want to make a difference in the world. So surround yourself with people like that. They can be your colleagues, they can be your friends, your family. Of course, I want to very quickly point out some challenges. When you do graduate and you make that transition from school to the workforce, you will find some challenges. Again, as my colleague mentioned, I am no exception that I went through the same challenges. First, you might not get into the exact industry that you want right away. And that's okay. A lot of people in international affairs will say, they want to work in the United Nations or the State Department. So does everybody else. And that's all right. That's a great goal to have. But be aware that your first job might not be exactly what you want. And that's all right. So you have to be ready for different ideas. You have to be open to different options. For example, working in a different city, maybe you want to work in New York City, but keep your options open because you never know what's going to come your way. When I was offered the opportunity to work in China, it was just for fall and the winter. I would never turn that down. So go for it. You might also, the second challenge is you might find yourself applying for a job but not necessarily getting it. You might be doing everything right from your resume and cover letter point of view. However, there's a certain piece that's lacking. And I've spoken to people who have amazing credentials and they fell upon the same problem. And there's a key piece there that's missing. And that's the networking. So networking has to be done and it has to be genuine. Please ask about the networking during the Q&A because I'm very rushed, as you can see, trying to get every point in. And my last challenge that I want to warn you about is that you will be asked to go above and beyond. Again, I'm so glad you spoke before me because you're like my living example for all the points that I'm making. At some point I find myself managing a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars negotiating contracts for that much money, stage managing a festival for 50 musicians. And I had never done any of this before. No training in the job and no training here at Fairfield University. So that's a good problem to have. Look upon those challenges as something to expand upon, to really build yourself and really capitalize on them. You'll be so happy and proud of yourself when you finally prove what you are capable of. My final concluding thoughts is to, throughout all of this, know yourself, know what you want and why, as well as know your limitations. What helps with knowing that is reflecting. Reflecting by writing or by discussing with everybody around you. We go to a Jesuit university and so reflection is a huge part of our values here. Take advantage of it and really use it. And my last piece of advice is to strive to always make a difference regardless of how you make it, that could be through journalism, through media, through a foreign language, through working in foreign aid in a different country. I always think about Steve Jobs who said to Pepsi executive John Scully to get him to work in Apple. He said, do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world? So between those two options choose not to sell sugar water but change the world in your own way, in your own terms. Tie everything you do to your own purpose of being, whether that's your side hustle, whether that's your hobby and your career. And this is what will motivate you through your challenges and through your toughest days. So we come full circle to why you are here, why you are doing what you're doing at Fairfield University and beyond. Thank you. Wow. My name is Diane Renfrey. Can everyone hear me? I'm a graduate class of 2013 with a Communication major and Marketing and Art History minor. However, when I first started at Fairfield U, I came in as an undeclared major. I really didn't know what I wanted to focus in on. I had a passion for more of the creative pieces in life like fashion and arts. So I just really wasn't sure when I first started but that led me to make the decision to become a Communications major because the beauty of the major is that it is so broad and there are really no limitations with the Communications major. And then I focused on Marketing and Art History as my minor. And during my time at Fairfield U, I really took advantage of the proximity we are to New York City and the endless opportunities that there are in New York City. It's a quick train ride away. And so during my junior and senior years, I would choose my courses and make it so that I would have at least two days available to commute into the city and back to get that real world experience that just helps build your resume and your character as a whole. And so junior year, senior year, I interned at a small PR firm. It wasn't exactly my perfect ideal internship, but it was something that opened the doors for me and helped me learn what else is out there and just like even basic things from how to write an email because I feel like half the things we do are write emails every single day. So then when I graduated, I still was very doubtful because in 2013 the job market was still very tough and sending my resume out the door every single night and hearing crickets back. So I wasn't feeling too hopeful about the future, but when I graduated, I started an internship at Calvin Klein with the men's buying team. And while it wasn't a full-time job, it was something and it was something that led to one thing that led to the next. And my internship lasted that summer. I grew and knew the teams, knew the business, understood, you know, what my role was there and having that opportunity and making the connections internally with the company then led me to a freelance role, which led me to a full-time position and then I got promoted and then promoted again and I was there for five years. And, you know, while I was there, I used the skills that I learned with my major, you know, interpersonal communication, organizational skills and applied that to the beginning steps of my career and that really helped me and grounded myself and made myself, I feel, a trustworthy individual and then what happened was when I was there for five years, you sort of, you make these strong connections, you become a trusted employee and I think the career success point that I had was they were developing a new program within my department called the Modern Mentor Program and the president of North America, Calvin Klein, saw this opportunity to say, hey, let's understand what's happening down here with all the millennials because we're so high up here, we're in meetings and, you know, we're not necessarily part of one another in terms of communication day in and day out. So that's when we were able to partner and we ended up, you know, working with all these cross-functional members and creating a upcycled reusable bag that was distributed across 150 stores North America. And then most recently, I transitioned to Tiffany and Company as a senior analyst for merchandising where I'm responsible for the assortment planning, so life cycle planning. I work with the visual merchants so how we set things up and make things pretty in the stores and then I also work with the pricing so there's a little bit of math involved and I think that, you know, from my point of view it's really being able to take advantage of how close you are to New York City and the opportunities that are there could really just open up doors and create new opportunities. We share a lot of similarities. Hi, I'm Dan Bruno. I also graduated in 2013. I was a film and television major. So basically growing up I always knew I wanted to be in film and television. That was like my passion. And I chose Fairfield because Fairfield's actually an incredible school for film and TV for a few different reasons. First off, the proximity to New York City. So for film and television it's really only L.A. or New York. So, you know, Fairfield being only an hour away it was perfect for that. For the technical aspects of the work Fairfield is very hands-on. I had a camera in my hand as a freshman whereas some people at NYU Tisch don't even touch cameras till senior year. So that's great. And then the third thing is internships. That's kind of the magic word of my whole career path is internships. And surprisingly Fairfield has paved the way in film and entertainment in New York City in a lot of ways. So basically for my first two years at Fairfield I studied more of the technical aspects of film and TV. And by my junior year there was a Fairfield alumni who got me an internship at NBC at the Maury show which is just as crazy as you'd probably imagine. As an intern I answered calls for people who wanted to be on the show so that was crazy hearing their stories. And I sat audience members and things like that. So that was a great first experience into the world. By senior year there was another alumni at Sesame Street and he got me an internship there as well. So basically you always want to keep in touch with the alumni, connect with people on LinkedIn. Both of my internships were from Fairfield alumni. So I basically started at Sesame Street the second semester of senior year which was incredible. Polar opposite from the Maury show as you can imagine. And it was great. Even the technical aspects I learned at Fairfield allowed me to even edit an episode of Sesame Street while I was there. It was an incredible internship but as it was drawing to an end everyone's wondering what they're going to do. A lot of business students already have their jobs lined up but for us in communications and media it's not always like that. So by the end of the year an entry level position opened at Sesame Street and this was kind of my first, I guess, failure in my career path was I thought, yes, this is perfect. Ending my internship, I'm a senior, I'm graduating. I've worked in this department for six months. I'm going to apply for this job. I applied, I thought the interview went well but I didn't get the job and that was kind of like Dan said, you know, we graduate without a job. It's kind of stressful. I'm an only child so my parents were not, they weren't expecting me to not have a job by graduation and I told them I wanted to move to the city and look for another internship which it's funny to think that, I mean, it's fair to think that, you know, you have a degree you shouldn't be like striving for an internship after you graduate but that's my biggest advice for the film and television industry is to get your foot in the door. It's such a small world and people that I work with now I've worked with at internships in the past. It's like an incredibly small world. So after I graduated, it took me a couple months and I got an internship at a small film, television, distribution company called Synodime. They, my job was to design DVDs which I never thought I would be doing. After I worked there for about a year I got close with my manager and he got hired as a manager at HBO. We had a great relationship and when his assistant quit he brought me along and I've been at HBO for four years now. So it's kind of a weird path to get to HBO but I started there at HBO in their DVD design business which I again never thought I would be doing and it's just the nature of the industry. No one watches DVDs anymore. I was designing them. I wasn't even watching DVDs but now I'm on their digital department and who knows where I'll be in two years, three years. Now it's subscription based services HBO versus Netflix we were joking about earlier. Who knows? So basically my advice for all of you guys is interchips. Number one and don't burn any bridges because I work with people who I've worked with at my past few jobs. It's a very small industry. Yeah that's pretty much it. And how things change in the industry every few years. I would say to roll with that there's really nothing we can do about how things are changing. Everything's changing very fast in our industry and I think if you find a company that you like working for it's good to get your foot in the door there even if it's not doing exactly what you think you will be doing because like I said I didn't think I'd be designing DVDs but I was happy that I was at HBO company that I like what they stand for. I like the content they put out. So yeah that's just a little bit about me. What I would like to do before we turn to the open Q&A is you've touched on a couple of things and because we were trying to move through briskly now you're thinking of other things. So I'm wondering if we might come back to Nicole and then just go down the row again to Diane and then to Dan but maybe indicate describe some very specific situation where the networking aspect may have played a helpful role to you. Can you think of something Nicole? Not specifically for me personally but I can think about it in terms of how me knowing a graduate from last year ended up helping our company and our team so somebody that I worked with on the mirror staff for three years was one of my good friends he graduated last year and he was looking for a job we had an opening on our team he texted me I told him hey I think you'd be a really great fit for this it's digital content you're a great writer within probably a month or two he had the job and two stags working on the same team on a team of six or seven people so that's pretty amazing to have that kind of close network of I worked with you for three years you felt comfortable enough to text me and ask me if I knew of anything happening and we happened to have an opening and within a matter of weeks maybe a month and a half tops he was added to our team and he's been with us for almost six months now so just that kind of having that kind of close you're on clubs you're on groups you're in classrooms maybe you were in a class with a junior when you were a freshman or what have you you've developed some sort of bond over whatever you were working on or whatever class you're in maintain that because this is just my example is a very small example of how that works and don't be shy about asking for help I'm very much guilty of being shy about asking for help I'm the worst at it but you have to do it you have to ask for help and you have to let people know hey you know what I'm looking for a job or I'm looking for an internship and make it known what you're looking for they may not have specifically that but they may have something pretty close and it may be something that you end up finding out you really like so definitely be vocal about it keep your contacts and just make sure you keep lines of communication open and have an open mind with whatever you're met with or presented with great thank you Clarissa definitely I agree networking is so huge I'm so glad everybody touched on it I never believed in networking I didn't think it worked and I always thought well I'm so good because I have my straight A is I can do it without networking and it doesn't work like that so in my career a lot of things have been due to networking which I'm very thankful for at some point I did an internship with the permanent mission of Albania to the United Nations which I represented a foreign country in the United Nations discussions and meetings and that I did through an informational interview so I literally just sent an email to the mission saying hi can I meet with you I'm very interested in your work I want to see if you have any opportunities they invited me to their office so I met with some of the diplomats and then I had an internship and then that opened the door for so many more things because when you can show that you worked at an embassy or at a consulate or at a UN mission like that really says something and that was done through an informational interview so please take notes on informational interview as a great way to network my other job working in China the company that hired me for this I had already worked for them teaching French to American students in France so they hired me for like different projects consistently I was hired by them like three times for short term projects like couple months the way that I got in touch with that company was through the model languages department here Dr. Joel Colfield who's in charge of the OPS classes some of you might have been in them I used to be an assistant teacher for French and then he introduced me to the company and then they got me hired to go to France and to go to China there are other instances where I did get a job you know by just cold cut applying the UN women job in Kosovo I got it because of my skills especially in language and credentials but it doesn't always work like that so it really does make a big difference oh my current job right now actually so I started as an intern here at French Ambassador's Foundation and then I became a consultant and then I became a full-time staff so you'll find yourself climbing ranks like that all the time I totally agree with the interest currently my like I said my job is due to that and on that point if I may shamelessly just make some advertising we are hiring volunteers right now for our big conference in York University if you're interested great way to network one other point I want to make on the networking is that it not only helps you get your job you need to look at networking a lot more than just getting your job so at my company with the youth assembly we're constantly looking for getting speakers from different organizations counseling for relations Deloitte everything and your network your connections your friends your colleagues in these different companies are what are going to help you every time you want to build partnerships every time you want to reach out when you want to plan events and invite different organizations so the value of networking is a lot more than just getting your job great Diane so the reason why I have my job today is because of my HR rep six years ago when I started at Calvin Klein in the internship he was a talent manager so I developed a really close relationship with him and he wanted to career path me and so when he when the internship was over that's when he said hey we have a freelance job opening I think you would be a really good fit because as you prove yourself and you work with people in the industry over say your opportunity is three to five months that's your chance to really show that you're the team you're working with what you can do and where your strong skills that are and then that leads for example HR to know how your skills could better fit spots that they have open in the company so I'd say my HR rep understood where I was strong at he suggested this will be a really good fit and then when a full time job opened he said this will also be a really good fit and it's full time so that's awesome and then he moved on and he bounced around different companies throughout my time when I stayed at Calvin Klein and then he ended up starting at Tiffany and Co two years ago and at that point in my time I grew at Calvin Klein but I was ready for something perhaps more challenging and maybe in a different industry and he was in that different industry he was in jewelry now he left sort of the fashion clothing aspect world and that's when there was a job open for product development and he said sure we can get you in the door but once you're in the door you have to sell yourself he's not going to hire you just because he knows you so yes networking is important being on to relationships is very important you always have to be nice no matter how tough someone could be on the other side because you never know when and where they'll end up and if you'll be working with them again so then when I was able to get an interview at Tiffany and Co with the product development team which wasn't really in line with what I was currently doing I was in buying it was an opportunity and when I interviewed with the director of product development she actually said to me based on your skills I actually think you'll be better for this other job we have open and that's actually the current job that I have so it's sort of to listen to people that you know could understand where your skill set is and they'll help direct you and guide you don't think that you have to be the one directing your career path yeah Stan I actually it was at an event just like this in the media center an alumni event where I after the the panel was over I went to a guy alumni and his name was Andrew who worked at Sesame Street and he was looking for interns and that's how I got my internship there and that really was a turning point for me like I said when I graduated I didn't get the job and it was a little frustrating but you got to keep that inside and you know I kept in touch with him over the next year or two not like an annoying amount but every like five six months I would reach out to him and just say hey how's it going how's everything at work things like that see if there's any openings but also just to keep the contact when I was applying for HBO I asked him for a letter of recommendation and I don't know if he would have if I hadn't been following up with him or I hadn't been a good worker or you know just been a good intern and there were six interviews at HBO that I had to go through and every single one brought up his letter of recommendation because it had like Elmo on it and it had all this like Muppets on it but it really helped me get in the door at HBO like my past internship and like I said at my job my boss left and when a job opened up he thought of me and reached out to me for the position I don't think he would have if he didn't think I could handle it or he didn't think I would be a good fit there so I mean the name of the game in film and TV is networking I wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for all the people that helped me and like what everybody said that's what we're here to do and we're going to keep passing it down but you need a degrees not enough sadly anymore where you could send 50 resumes a day to like indeed job postings and it's going to be really tough to get a job that way because they're taking interns that they've had they're taking recommendations so once you get your foot in the door start meeting people and keeping those relationships and it'll work out it's really helpful thank you what I'd like to do now is open it up to you and so I'm going to be walking around or maybe some of my seminar students will help me but we need to make sure that you ask your question into the microphone so that the videotape can pick it up alright so who would like to ask a question hi my name is Matthew I'm an art history major and I'm a junior and one thing I've been kind of struggling with is narrating my career goals and aspirations I have a lot of different interests so I wanted to ask you guys what is the best way to kind of do create an elevator pitch to say here's what I'm interested in I have all these ideas and possibilities of careers career paths that I want to follow but I don't know where to get started and how can I build a network off of that by asking other people and pitching this idea who would like to field that I'll start so I think if I heard the first part of your question right is kind of narrowing down what it is that you really want to focus on right so the thing that I think I always asked myself were what am I good at and what do I love and somewhere where those meet is what your purpose is and I think if you consider those things you should be able to narrow it down to at least a few things of what you might want to pursue so for me I looked at okay I really love writing that's what I love to do what am I you know what am I good at maybe it's the same thing for me it was I was good at writing but I also really loved it I love telling stories two of them together the natural fit for me was to pursue something like journalism where I get that to me that's a privilege to be able to tell somebody's story and to be able to do that story justice so for you I'd say that's probably the central question to ask yourself is what do I love and what am I good at and somewhere in that should be what your purpose is in terms of I think what was the rest of your question was asking sort of how to how to articulate that I think as long as it comes from the heart no matter who you're talking to people are going to recognize heart people are always going to recognize heart and hustle if they see that you work hard and that you're passionate about what you do I think you could pretty much sell anything especially yourself the key in that is believing that you're good enough and that you're worthy of it I don't know if anybody else has anything to add to that but please do I mean I'm talking as a as a young one so yeah that's always a tough question the elevator pitch you know there are people like much older and they still haven't mastered that the best one of my pieces of advice is when you want to work on the wording and the language of the elevator speech it has to be very specific it has to be very direct very to the point there will be two to three sentences you have to be able to define yourself for example hi I'm a student I study art history and I'm very interested in working in historical museums whatever it may be I would recommend speaking with the career services office here because they have helped me so much with things like that with how to edit the writing and the language in your resume as well as in your elevator speech so that will help a lot and really a lot of it is just practice the more you practice the more you will get it down to exactly what you want as you grow older you will learn more you will know yourself better I want to talk about a LinkedIn elevator speech because that's different than like an actual elevator speech because you did mention how can you use an elevator speech to increase and aggrandize your network one of the best ways to do that you know when you send somebody a LinkedIn invite write to them don't just write as generic message because those will just get tossed out especially for people who are very alumni for example who are very busy and they get a lot of invites all the time why do you want to meet them why are you interested in their work so actually a lot of it is about if you make it about them then they will understand they will open up and they will want to help you on that point on LinkedIn I just want to do a 1, 2, 3 way to describe how you can network very concretely on LinkedIn so go to LinkedIn type in somebody from for example a company you want to work in and then on the filter click Fairfield University so you will be able to see everybody who works in that company who is from Fairfield University that's really cool once you find those people reach out to them to connect to them once you connect to them and you explain why you want to connect to them then make an informational meeting and that's how you can get somebody who has never heard of you in the world to be in the same room face to face with them and potentially help you hello my name is Ora my international studies major I'm a senior now and this question will go particularly to you I have heard a lot about you so I would like to know what was your first job right after Fairfield you know international studies is a multi-disciplinary field and there is a lot to do there so how do you kind of narrow down where to go after graduation yeah that's a very tough one international affairs is just so different so broad you have gender equality sustainable development and just poverty and so on peace and war and so on and so forth I don't know what my first job is actually to be honest because I've had so many different jobs and consultancies and positions some long term some short term that I wouldn't be able to define I guess my first real big girl job is the one that I'm doing right now where I'm full time staff I would say what helps a lot if you want to narrow it down try different things what helped me figure out exactly what I wanted to do is exactly these short term projects that I was on these internships you learn whether you want to work in gender or not by just testing it out putting your foot in the water I think that's the expression so use the internship opportunities just have as many experiences as possible to see if that's to your liking or not I am a huge proponent of field experience so if you ever get a chance to do that that'll help you narrow down your focus of where you want to work geographically for international studies this is very specific to this type of field but I guess you can apply it to your field as well figure out what type of work you want to be and whether it's like human rights gender whatever it is one way you can do that is by doing your research I can stress enough how important research of your industry is look up different companies that may be interested what type of work do they do what type of job positions that you might be interested in five years down the road two years down the road look up different companies any position that is open see what the qualifications are see what the job description is and ask yourself would you like to do this can you picture yourself doing this at some point so it's a combination of research knowing yourself learning more as you go through life and then trying out and testing out different things from internships to short term consultancies to being here at lectures to networking and talking with people to see what their job is but it really is such a big combination of how you get to exactly what it is that you want and once you do get to exactly where it is that you want to do be aware that you might change it you may want to add to it you may want to shift a little bit so it's never said everything is just fluid and constantly changing and be open to that Hi my name is Catherine Samanek and I think I'm kind of on the opposite spectrum here as I'm a prospective student so I'm graduating high school this year and I have this question mainly towards Nicole I see myself in your shoes back when you were starting off and I'm very interested in the journalism field and that's kind of what I want to pursue coming here and I was wondering in such a time where it's ever changing in this industry if you could go back to the beginning of Fairfield University and do anything different seeing how things are now what would you do Well first of all welcome and I'm so happy to see a young potential journalist here that makes me so happy would I go back in time would I handle it differently is that the essence of your question you know what I can't say I would and here's why no matter how volatile journalism is right now the one thing that I learned here and I think it's very unique to the Fairfield experience seeing journalism as tied to being a service the one thing I was always taught here was that there's that Jesuit principle of being a man and woman for others and I always in every single class I took in journalism that was always sort of the underlying message was that no matter what it is no matter what people are saying no matter what whether it's fake or it's not it's a service at the end of the day what you're doing is you're charged with the task of telling an honest story at the end of the day that's what you're doing and if you're doing it right it's not easy it's not easy at all and I think that's a very special thing to want to do and I wouldn't change it no matter how difficult it is to sometimes keep my head up throughout the day and you know I work on social media and we get comments even to a local news outlet saying that your news is fake that that fire didn't happen it did happen number one we had reporters there they saw it but number two it's just it's realizing that you are part of something bigger you are part of recording what's going on whether it's like what I do in local news or it's much bigger in the country it's realizing that you are having a role in telling an honest large story about a person and event something and I wouldn't change that ever I think it's very easy to look at it right now and be very cynical about it and sometimes I am being perfectly honest sometimes I'm very cynical about it but if it's what you love and it's what you're passionate about you're going to find a way to make it work you're going to find a way to say you know what maybe it's not going to be in news in hard news maybe it's going to be talking to really interesting people like if you're interested in musicians or art maybe it's going to be talking to those people and telling their story and not necessarily you know wanting to write about politics and how the white house is burning down it's going to be about those things you're going to find the ways to keep the joy in it and to keep it as that service to other people and also is something that sparks joy in you because ultimately it's your life and you want it to be meaningful and joyful so I hope that answers your question and hopefully you still decide to write we have time for one or two more questions we've got one in the back here we go Hi my name is Jolie and I'm a freshman at Fairfield Diane this question I guess is more pointed towards you I'm interested in working in the fashion industry after college and since there's no specific fashion program here I'm just wondering what steps you recommend I take to get my foot in the door of the industry um great question because I felt the same sort of struggle but um I think it's important to I should say people like it when they see retail experience so not just the corporate side but also the hands on like dealing customer facing and having that interaction I worked at a small luxury boutique retailer during high school and then when I didn't before I had all my internships in the summer and winter I would go back and work retail so having the face to face customer interaction really helped boost my resume and then also taking the train to New York City and when I started so I touched upon I started as a PR intern in beauty which I'm not really big beauty fan but it was something and it was something that got me to understand the outside world or the city world and how it operated what a nine to five or eight to nine day looked like and then after the PR internship I interned at Lucky magazine which under Hearst Corporation which that magazine no longer exists but that I was an accessories intern and it was something and I think the important piece about it was that I had to be open minded I didn't know what really I wanted to do I just knew that it was something that was fun looked cool on my resume I worked with cool people that dressed in really funky outfits but I got hands on experience and that's what counts is just building those the different internships and they last three to five months and between your sophomore year to senior year you have six semesters of potential internships plus summers and then when I was working so to go back to Lucky magazine I was an accessories intern in the closet and I was maintaining the inventory that major fashion houses would send and we would have editorials where we would then have to shoot send out those pieces to the shoot make sure it got back so it was very I guess manual if you had but I got to work with really cool pieces and then it wasn't until after that when I interned at Michael Kors I was sort of on the opposite side now and I thought to myself okay I understood this I want to understand the other side to the business but it was also in PR and I was I was happy I wasn't like thrilled I knew it wasn't what I'd ultimately be passionate about but I just I kept adding to my resume and you know developing relationships with all sorts of people in the industry and then when I interned when I graduated and interned at Calvin Klein in the buying role it wasn't until like the HR rep as well as who I interned for was like she would be a really good fit for this I've seen her grow and develop over the course of three to five months it's that those are the opportunities that you should take and run with it and you know put in the long hours a hard effort and have patience too patience is like my number one piece of advice because things don't happen overnight they take time and be flexible you know I started in PR and I'm now in merchandising buying that's this is not where I saw myself five years ago when I graduated so patience and flexibility and obviously networking thank you so much I think given the the time and I want to allow many of you to come up to talk to them individually and if you still have questions of course this is a great opportunity they will stay until about eight ish they have work tomorrow we've got to be sure they get to bed but let's give them a big round of applause to thank them another very insightful evening so thanks so much for coming and come on up don't be shy