Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

5 Reasons Why You Should Absolutely Attend First Year Fridays!

Heyyy First Years!  First and foremost, what are First Year Fridays you ask? First Year Fridays occur every Friday from 1-2pm in Hollister 105 where Peer Career Ambassadors discuss a range of career-related topics! As this session is exclusively for First Years, we encourage active participation throughout the presentation in order to fully address your needs. So now that you’re intrigued, let’s get into 5 reasons why you must absolutely attend!

You will learn something new. Each week, PCAs address a different career-related topic based on what’s going on around campus. For example, the Friday following the Career Expo, PCAs discussed the importance of following up with employers and gave advice on how to do so. Students who attended were able to directly apply the lessons learned from the FYF presentation. Remember, the career arena is so widespread and there often are topics that we forget or just simply don’t know about, so each FYF session is bound to teach you something new! Keep an eye on Handshake to see a listing of all upcoming FYF topics and sign up! 

You can tidy up your professional image. Any opportunity that gives you a chance to gain new insights related to sculpting your career path will provide you with professional growth. At FYF not only do PCAs provide you with tips and techniques on how to best navigate the career field, you also gain insights from your peers as they share their experiences with the topics being discussed. Sometimes hearing testimonies from our peers make us feel more capable of accomplishing a task at hand. 

You can get help with career materials in real-time. As was already mentioned, learning something new is always valuable and beneficial to our personal and professional growth. But to get to that growth stage, sometimes it is hard to figure out how to implement learned concepts. In FYF Sessions, you get the full works! PCAs share concepts with you, they relay strategies on how to apply those learned concepts, and they make themselves available to answer questions and provide feedback as  you work on your materials. Talk about real-time!

You will get a headstart on career opportunities. Equipping yourself with career-related knowledge at such an early stage will allow you to stand out in this already competitive workforce. It is always a good idea to put yourself in a situation where you are able to polish your personal brand and distinguish yourself from other applicants.

You will build relationships with the UGCCD Office and your peers. I am sure you have all either heard about or witnessed the power of building relationships. With the formation of relationships comes the sharing of knowledge, experiences, advice, compliments, feedback, opportunities, and the list goes on. Sometimes we forget the significant impact people can have on us and vice versa. Therefore, relationships are worth investing in because you never know the benefits that can stem from the bonds you formed. And trust me, forming those bonds with a community that is committed to helping you achieve your excellence and peers who are willing to support you along the way is a blessing to have.

Sooo, you learn something new, get to tidy up your professional image,  get real-time help with your career needs, get a headstart on career opportunities anddd you get to build strong relationships…ummm…I’ll see you on Friday, at 1pm in Hollister 105!

Best, Davele!