Photos by Julia Naman
Clustered around heaters and trays of appetizers, students and alumni exchanged business cards Feb. 5 at the SoCal Social in Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel. With a $10 pre-charge, students from all five Pepperdine campuses (about 120 total according to Director of the Career Center Amy Adams) gathered to network with approximately 30 alumni.
The networking event was part of the sixth annual Career Week – one of 25 events offered to students this week.
“Our Career Center mission is to equip students and alumni to prepare and compete professionally,” Adams wrote in an email. “We want to give you the know-how, motivation, confidence and connections to secure and enjoy a purpose-filled professional life. We invite our alumni and university friends to come alongside students to help them navigate the transition from college to career through mentoring, coaching and job shadowing programs.”
This year’s Career Week featured a wide range of topics from psychology to technological advances in the business world – even offering convocation credits at two sessions, one of them taking place tonight at 7 p.m. in Elkins Auditorium.
“I’m going to the session on non-profit and non-government careers,” freshman Ellie Resendiz said. “I’m minoring in non-profit management. I am involved with the Pepperdine Volunteer Center, and I really want to do community service, but I don’t know what exactly I want to do with it and what jobs are out there. I’m hoping to see the alumni panel’s experiences to figure out what I want to do.”
Resendiz’ roommate, freshman Alexis Padilla, also found her niche in the Career Week schedule.
“I want to go into broadcast journalism, which is in the entertainment industry,” Padilla said, who planned on attending the “Pursuing Your Call in the Entertainment Industry” session. “A lot of people are saying the field is dying so I’d like to know what the experts have to say.”
But not all students feel that they are represented during Career Week.
“There’s never any medical stuff,” sophomore Joshua Chan said, a sports medicine major. “I feel like there’s more opportunities for business majors rather than medical students. I see medical opportunities like once a year at Pepperdine, and I feel like Career Week is more focused on business students.”
At the SoCal Social, senior Alex Archibeque, who plans on going to the music industry after graduation, said that even though he didn’t meet many connections in that field, he was happy to get experience talking to professionals.
“I’m going to graduate soon, and I want to start networking and meeting new people,” Archibeque said. “Even though I really don’t want to go into financing, I thought the discussions were pretty interesting.”
According to Adams, 48 percent of job-seeking students in the class of 2013 at Seaver College had jobs on graduation day, while the national average was only 29 percent.
“Pepperdine grads enjoy a much higher job rate,” Adams wrote. “We don’t have comprehensive data about all recent graduates six months after graduation, but projections suggest that close to 65 percent have jobs within a year of graduation while an additional 14 percent go on to graduate school.”
Next up on the Career Center’s agenda is the Spring Career Fair, taking place Feb. 13, where “students can actually meet employers face to face,” wrote Adams.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for Pepperdine students to network with alumni and other companies,” sophomore Conor Burke said. “We need these connections to bring the students and alumni together because often times when students graduate they don’t feel like they have enough skills to land a solid job. Career week provides students with the opportunity to get connections, to get jobs, to live happy lives.”
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