As part of the Computing Science recruitment activities, we often send people to area career\/education fairs. The idea is that people (usually high school students) come and explore their options.<\/p>\n
I had never been to one of these, and decided I should go and see what they’re all about. Yesterday was the Vancouver Education and Career Fair, downtown at the convention centre. I decided to go, along with Margo, to see what I could see.<\/p>\n
An “education” fair is probably a little more focused. An “education and career” fair is pretty all-over the map. There were booths there from a bunch of Universities (SFU, UBC, bunch of Ontario schools, some US schools), but I kind of understand Universities by now. What I found more interesting were the straight-from-high-school jobs: Kara Foods, esthetician training, police, certified accountants, and countless other crazy things. All of the SFU people got their skin analyzed at a nearby spa-training booth as the day started to wind down.<\/p>\n
The practical implementation of being a “recruiter” for a day involves standing on concrete for 8 hours, and starting to think that the ratty carpet in the aisles would be really comfortable to lie down on.<\/p>\n
I think that the whole thing was worthwhile. People had questions that ranged from “what kind of courses will I take in CS” to general career advising. It’s worth it to have a variety of people from SFU there who can answer a wide variety of questions. Students go away with good information about SFU, and thinking that we’re very helpful.<\/p>\n