The Expo Experience
by Jason Stogner
The Spring Semester of 2006 cracked opened many doors for my future in the “real world”. It was my first semester as a full time University of Arizona student, my first semester in the Eller cohort, my initial time learning becoming involved in an on campus club, Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), which led to attending my first Career Expo.
All semester I had heard other SIFE students push how important it was to attend this event and how others had gained contacts, internships and job opportunities by attending the annual Career Expo. Being new to the U of A scene I had my doubts and was rather nervous about having to present myself to recruiters whom I had never met and whose job it was to judge me in about a five-minute time period. The day of the event, I decided that it is not often that you have an opportunity to make this many connections in a limited amount of time so I made time in my schedule and went.
When I arrived, I first circled the room a couple of times and found the companies with whom I wished to speak. I then decided to jump in the mix and talked to a recruiter. The first couple of conversations were a bit awkward but I soon found a groove. By the end of an hour, I had spoken with several recruiters from major companies and a few seemed to like me.
A few weeks later, a representative from Walgreens contacted me and asked me to interview for their summer internship. After two interviews, I was offered and accepted the internship. I spent my summer learning what it takes to run an industry- leading retail store; including ordering, managing employees, and finding ways to improve sales and cut shrink. If I had not made the time to attend SIFE's Career Expo and forced myself to do something out of my comfort zone I would have spent another summer waiting tables.
