On Sept. 12-13 the Student Engineers' Council (SEC) at Texas A&M University held their Fall 2018 Engineering Career Fair at Reed Arena. The fair is a premier recruiting event that is planned, organized and staffed by students, making it the largest student-run career fair in the nation. This year, more than 10,000 students attended seeking internships and jobs from the 436 companies that participated.
“The career fair brings in a lot of people,” said Matthew Milanowski ’15, a Citgo process engineer who attended this fair as a student. “From the company side, that means we have a lot of good candidates to look out for.”
The day before the fair, the SEC hosted two events, a welcome social and the company showcase. At the welcome social, students had the opportunity to interact with company recruiters in a relaxed, professional setting. The company showcase is an informational style event where students learned about how to better understand companies, recruiting practices and the typical positions that are filled by engineering students.
Kimberly Robinson, a senior mechanical engineering student, completed an internship last year and attended this year’s fair in search of a second internship.
“I really like the career fair because it gives me a different insight into companies,” Robinson said. “A lot of questions I ask are about what the culture of the company is like,” she said. “It gives me a better idea if it’s a good fit for me.”
In addition to hosting the annual career fair, the SEC also played a large role in the renovation of the newly opened Zachry Engineering Education Complex. One of the first donations for the building, the largest academic building on campus, came from the students on behalf of the SEC through funds raised from this career fair.