Quinnipiac’s School of Communications will soon hold its first professional development event at the Rocky Top Student Center.
Called the Media Mashup, the event will bring all four SoC departments together for the very first time April 20-21 in order to network and enhance professionalism for the future.
“The more opportunities we give our students, the more successful they will be when they graduate,” Brett Orzechowski said. “We want to start developing and strengthening that pipeline for media jobs and communications jobs around the region and country.”
Orzechowski, a journalism professor, said the idea to host the Media Mashup came from other similar events on campus.
“Of course you have to start somewhere, but the way we looked at it was more professional, the better,” Orzechowski said. “We are a professional school, and our students expect to be polished when they graduate.”
Communications students themselves helped create the event, expressing what they wanted to see at the Media Mashup through a survey sent out in October. Since then, faculty and students have been working to make the event a success.
“The idea was a collaborative effort among the SoC faculty,” said Meaghen Kenney, executive student director of the event. “They felt there was a need for a professional development event for communications students, and this was a great opportunity.”
The two-day event includes a career fair on Friday and professional development sessions on Saturday. The career fair is designed to allow students to meet and network with over 50 media hiring companies that will be in attendance.
At Saturday’s interactive development sessions, 25 professionals will speak about various media topics during morning and afternoon sessions. Students can choose the sessions they wish to attend depending on their department.
The day will end with keynote speaker John Berman of ABC News.
The list of professional organizations for the event includes NBC, ESPN, the Dilenschneider Group, ABC and several others.
“We are giving our students a diverse program and three opportunities to network and listen to industry professionals, which is experience that they could get in the classroom, they can get in their internship,” Orzechowski said. “But another day to have an audience of professionals is something that the School of Communication has never offered before.”
The event is open to all SoC students, but Orzechowski said that “seniors especially would be remiss if they didn’t attend because these are the fields they want to go in to.”
Kenney said that students should come prepared to network on both Friday and Saturday.
Interested students must register on the event’s website by March 1. Registration is free, and the first 200 students will receive a free gift and lunch.
The event is funded and supported by the Office of Academic Affairs and the New Synthesis Initiative, according to Orzechowski.
For more information and to register for the event, visit www.qumashup.com
