Inaugural Graduate Student Career Fair This Friday

The Career, Research, and Innovation Development Conference (CRIDC) is expanding in 2018 to include the Graduate Student Career Fair, Georgia Tech’s fist career fair exclusively for graduate students.

CRIDC will take place Thursday and Friday, Feb. 8–9, with the career fair held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday.

“The central mission of the CRIDC is to prepare  graduate students to be adaptive and versatile for the ever-changing technological, financial, and political landscapes inherent to the 21st-century market,” said Sang Yun Han, deputy vice president of graduate events and CRIDC chair for the Graduate Student Government Association (SGA). “We want to make sure graduate students are prepared for a technologically changing world.”

The conference, held annually since 2010, offers workshops and panels on four different areas of interest: academic, nonprofit and research, industry, and entrepreneurship. Here, professionals in industry and academia offer their advice and expertise to graduate students. The event also includes a poster competition where students can showcase their research.

The event is more expansive still. CRIDC hosts the VentureLab competition, where students can present new and marketable innovations, and partners with the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts for its paper competition.

Aroua Gharbi, vice president of graduate events for Graduate SGA, noted that the poster competition provides a unique opportunity for students to practice their communications skills and highlight the diverse academic offerings at Georgia Tech.

“We are trying to attract students from different schools,” said Gharbi. Han and Gharbi also feel that a career fair is an ideal addition to CRIDC. Students can explore their interests through panels and workshops on the first day, and then convert their newfound interests into action at the career fair.

Gharbi noted that the idea for the career fair came at the suggestion of many of her peers. “Graduate students are looking forward to talking with employers that they know are only looking for graduate students,” she said.

The graduate fair will not be the only new offering this year. CRIDC will feature four new workshops panels: Bioscience for Everyone, Data Science and Machine Learning, Navigating the Work Visa Landscape, and Women in STEM.

According to Han and Aroua, these new panels, along with the career fair, are designed to better reflect the needs of Georgia Tech students. They noted the interdisciplinary focus of bioscience and the eminence of big data, particularly at Georgia Tech in light of new programs like the Master of Science in Analytics.

Han also said that with international students comprising nearly half of Georgia Tech’s graduate student body, a panel on the work visa system is highly relevant — and responsive — to one of CRIDC’s primary constituents. To Gharbi, the panel on Women in STEM is important in “highlighting the amazing work that women at Georgia Tech are doing.”

With all of these new offerings, CRIDC is expecting a large crowd. According to Han, last year’s event had around 280 students. This year, they expect more than 500. Forty companies will participate.

The event is organized by Graduate SGA in conjunction with the Center for Career Discovery and Development and Graduate Education and Faculty Development. More information about CRIDC can be found here, and graduate students looking to RSVP can do so here.