Hello Hello! We are your friendly neighborhood seniors here to share a fantastic career growth opportunity with you. We attended the SHPE Conference in November of 2022 and left with many insights that we hope will help you! Most importantly, we wanted to emphasize how important and helpful conferences can be. There’s so many opportunities and inspiring people, and we hope to encourage you to go to a conference and take advantage of this in the near future 🙂.
There’s sooooo many opportunities at conferences that there’s guaranteed to be something for everyone. You also have the chance to not only continue down paths you are passionate about, but to also explore new avenues. When else will you be in an environment with so many people recruiting!
There are booths everywhere, including for companies that you’ve never heard of or considered working for. Did you know that L’Oreal & Tiktok hire STEM professionals?? Super cool! Plus, they have swag!! I was definitely in the Walt Disney Imagineering line <3.
You can talk to ANY and EVERY company. Networking has never been so seamless and accessible. They will even reach out to you before and after the conference, so you’re not limited to the days of the conference. This can happen without you applying or showing interest in them too! We have gotten reached out to by companies that we never thought would be interested in us, and we even ended up getting offers from some competitive STEM roles. In addition, it’s totally okay to talk to companies that you’ve never seen before. I *definitely* totally wasn’t researching them while in line to talk to them…
Plenty of things to do! Aside from the actual career fair, which might be 1-2 days long, there are many other events happening in parallel and before/after the career fair times. There’s workshops, competitions, and corporate dinners as well, and maybe other things depending on the conference. There’s professionals everywhere, helping to run these events and eager to talk to and network with you, and there’s so many opportunities to find someone who will help you land your next role!
Sponsors and professionals genuinely care about you and what you’ve done. These are passionate people who come together and are willing to help you, that is, if you go and present yourself in person :).
These interactions lead to not only an array of opportunities but feeling empowered as well. The question that stayed with us after this conference was: We all start off as dreamers but someday we grow up. What if we didn’t?
Rishita’s Biggest Takeaway:
Often at college it is easy to feel like I am preparing to be just another member in the vast workforce, however, by the end of the workshops and tech talks at the SHPE conference, I felt inspired to change my mindset. I left with tangible strategies on how to navigate and find my niche in the workforce and thrive in the industry doing something that will make me happy.
It was so powerful to see women and hispanics in STEM hosting tech talks and sharing insights on how they grew in their career. My biggest takeaway as a young woman in stem was to be true to myself and maintain authenticity as I navigate my career. I realized that I never want to let go of the 5-year old dreamer inside of me, but instead nourish her to make those dreams into reality.
Dianna’s Biggest Takeaway:
I felt really inspired after talking to the engineering representative in Walt Disney Imagineering - he was really impressed with my background. He stopped me after I said that I feel I can learn a lot in this role to tell me that “we can learn from each other”. I’m not just an employee - I have things to bring to the table, and I would be an asset to the team (any team I choose to join!) even though I might not have as much experience.
Conclusions:
All in all, this was a great opportunity that everyone should take advantage of if they are able to attend a conference. For those who want to attend but may experience financial burden, there are options out there for you! There are sponsorships and grants that you can apply to, and Olin may also have limited funds (Office of IDEA and SAG grants for example) to help some students pay for certain fees. We hope you will consider attending a conference in the near future.
Learn more about the SHPE National Convention and Conference here!