Anthony Malinowski, Managing Copy Editor
Plenty of fish in the sea means more opportunities, but not when there are more fishermen.
As a College of Engineering Technology student, my college gets its own Career & Internship Fair timeslot due to over 100 employers looking for new engineers. With this, employers can be pickier about who they deem as qualified for a position, hence more fishermen.
Walking around the fair made me feel like I was competing with the same people I had to work with for my classes. I would see a table that interested me and notice that one of my classmates had just recently left after talking to them. We have the same knowledge from our bachelor’s degree, but how much of a difference might cause the employer to sway one way over the other?
It’s not uncommon for many employers to talk to you for a while, gauge your interest, ask for your resume and finally ask for your major. More often than not, they end the conversation by stating that they are not looking to hire a soon-to-be manufacturing engineering technology graduate. The recruiters stay at their table to welcome the next student while I walk away with one less resume, five to 10 minutes gone and the weight of knowing a company doesn’t want to hire me.
I’m currently batting one for three on successful opportunities brought by the fair, with many smaller losses along the way.
Last semester, I went through the hiring process for a position after graduation. I scheduled an interview with the company in FLITE, which helped me progress to an in-person interview in Kalamazoo. This culminated in an hour-and-a-half drive that led to me getting ghosted by the company.
This semester, I went in with my head held high, only to discover that this career fair was much like the semester’s prior, potentially worse. Out of the approximately 30 companies that were looking for someone in my school, over half of them were solely looking for interns.
Discovering this fact made me feel like I was wasting my time. Although I had people who were looking for students in my major, it felt like there wasn’t anyone looking for me.
The tables advertise what schools they are looking for but are not required to disclose what they are looking for upfront. A simple change to the structure of the employer sign-up would allow students to better plan ahead for the career fair. If a table is looking for full-time workers and you’re an intern, you would be able to spend more time with employers that have an interest in you.
After two hours, I left with a folder full of information about companies and only five of my starting 20 resumes remaining. If the future is like the past, I’ll likely only hear back from one or two.
My sole success was with my internship during the 2024 summer. A random one-off conversation with a company that didn’t have a direct interest in me spiraled into a 10-week internship in Wisconsin. There’s a shimmer of hope on the horizon, but it slowly fades as the days pass since the fair.
A career fair may offer some opportunities to some people, but acknowledging that we all face the same struggles is important. Many students who aren’t in engineering struggle to find tables at the career fair because they don’t have employers there for them. I sympathize with them because I understand where they are coming from.
At the end of the day, would you rather have no tables for your major or have the facade that there is?
Grace Heethuis, Freelance Reporter
One of the scariest parts of being an English major is considering whether I will find a job after graduation.
Don’t get me wrong, being a humanities major is an incredibly rewarding thing. Degrees in the humanities can be very valuable despite the push for more stable career fields such as STEM.
Despite the many advantages accompanying a degree in the humanities, there has been a decline in the number of students who choose to pursue such a degree. According to Yale Daily News, the percentage of seniors with humanities degrees has fallen by about 50% in the last 20 years.
On Thursday, Feb. 28, I attended the career fair at Ferris. Upon going in and looking around, I saw nothing directed toward English majors. Many humanities majors were neglected. The career fair was divided into four sections: Health studies, community, criminal justice and social work, business and teacher education.
While there were many great companies, I saw a huge lack of opportunity for people in the humanities.
At the career fair, I walked around the tables several times. I endlessly searched for something that would consider humanities majors like myself. After several laps and talking to a few tables, I gave up my search for potential future employers.
To some people, it might seem unimportant. Maybe some people will think that I’m reaching or creating an issue that doesn’t matter, but if you are somebody who works in the humanities field or is pursuing a degree in the humanities, you probably understand exactly what I’m talking about.
Studying anything in the humanities field comes with a specific set of challenges that others don’t face. Humanities majors often face scrutiny from friends, family and even strangers about their field of study on top of a major lack of support surrounding the humanities.
The lack of support is an issue resulting from the belief that degrees in the humanities are worthless. There is a huge push for stable and high-earning careers in fields, like healthcare and STEM.
Walking around the career fair felt very discouraging, especially since it was my first time attending. The career fair is widely talked about across campus long before the day of the event. Many students are excited about the opportunities that await them.
For students like me, these hopes were crushed. After reviewing the list of employers and walking around the career fair, I was saddened to realize there was not a single table geared toward English majors that weren’t in educational settings.
There were plenty of tables for future English teachers and other kinds of education majors. Despite the low salary teachers combat, teaching is still a highly encouraged career. It’s a bad thing, as we will always need teachers. That still doesn’t dull the pain and hardship humanities students face because of the stigma surrounding our studies.
For people like myself who hope to be writers and editors, there was nothing. This isn’t to say the career fair was a massive failure. I’m not here to tear the career fair apart entirely. For many students, there were great opportunities to take advantage of.
This isn’t a story about how useless the career fair is. It is a call for the inclusion of students of all majors, particularly those within the humanities. In the future, when I go to the career fair, I hope to see representation for all majors, not just popular ones.
Students go to college hoping to build great careers for themselves and do what they enjoy. With the right opportunities, this can become a reality.
Ferris was built upon the idea that all students should have access to opportunities to create a better life for themselves. With greater inclusion at the career fair, this is entirely possible.