Entries tagged with “Career Fair” from Hawk Talk - Guthrie

Now that I am back, I found that I have much more free time. All of the hours I have put into my project every week are now open. This gives me the potential of focusing on my future.

As you may know, I am quickly approaching my graduation in December. As of now my plans for the future are unclear, but my aim is to either be working full time as an engineer in a field related to plastics, or to be studying full time for my master’s degree. I have been trying to work out teaching assistant and research assistant funding, which would waive my tuition and also give me a bi-weekly income that I could live off of. I have also been actively searching for jobs. Two big dates are coming up this week for my job searching: The UMass Lowell Career Fair on Wednesday, the 21^st, and the 2009 MassPlastics show on Thursday, the 22^nd.

The career fair looks a little bit more promising this semester as compared to last semester. There are about 6 companies looking for plastics engineers, of which 2 are actually hiring full time positions. The rest are either hiring interns or just accepting resumes. Since I am graduating in December, and positions will be opening in January, this gives me a good advantage over the students graduating in May 2010.

The MassPlastics show is a trade show similar to the ACS Rubber Expo that I attended last week in Pittsburg. However, I am not very familiar with rubber processing and technology, so the show in Pittsburg felt a bit foreign to me. On the other hand, I have been studying plastics processing and technology for the past 4 ½ years, so this show should help me to see where the plastics industry stands today, and also give me a better idea of the local companies that I could send my resume to.

Hopefully with a little bit of luck, I will get some positive leads that will land me a few interviews in the next few weeks. Good luck with your job searching if you are attending the career fair this week. Thanks for reading.

Over the summer I have been working on a non-funded undergraduate research project. You can read about it in my previous entry:

The First Part of My Research Project I have been getting a lot of work done on testing my samples. I hope to have all of my testing done by the end of the month, so that I can work on my poster up until the presentation. Another great thing about my trip to Pittsburg is that I will be attending a career fair. I think that a lot of the companies attending are automotive suppliers and manufacturers. This would be good since I have a background in automotive.

The next big date is the UML engineering and technology career fair on October 21^st. Last semester, the career fair was a bust. There were only 5 companies that were interested in my major, and only 3 of them showed up. I know that the economy has taken a beating, but I am keeping my hopes up that this career fair will have a better outcome than last semester.

I have a lot of work to do over the next few weeks. I need to get my work done and get my resume revised. I’m doing everything I can to prepare myself for the real world!