Join us!

Tonight is the moment you’ve all been waiting for–Media Networking Night!  Hosted by CCE with support from us and Spec, the event will be held in the Low Library Rotunda, so just follow the line of anxious peers and alums straight up the steps.  MNN officially begins at 7 pm, but we suggest you get there earlier to hop on line and maximize your time with the impressive networkers we have attending.  We hope that you have already registered (and gotten a pre-registration pass) but in case you haven’t yet, go through CCE’s comprehensive site here.  Through that link you can also explore the different areas of media that will be present and prepare yourself for the over 250 registered networkers planning to show up and talk to you.

At Media Networking Night, you have access to professionals in various areas of media who you can talk to for information on what exactly they do, career advice, and how to get that all-important business card for future work and connections.

Join us!

It’s registration day all around, dear readers!

Bwog is proud to announce that we are supporting CCE with their annual Media Networking Night, along with Spec. This fantastic event puts you in contact with over 300 professionals in various subsections of media (broadcast journalism, entertainment, new media, PR/marketing/advertising, print journalism, social media, and the visual arts) to discuss what they do and how they got there—in addition to nabbing some useful business cards. Media Networking Night boasts some big names like the The New York Times, NBC, Finn Partners, CAA, and Magnolia Pictures.

We highly suggest that you register by midnight tonight and get a special pre-registered pass. See you there!

Where CCE and CCSC will take you.

Ever wonder what goes on in the weekly mysterious CCSC meetings? Wonder no more, because we sent Maren Killackey on a magical mission to find out for you. Here’s a report:

Because it’s not adult life if your parents still pay for your Blackberry…

Dean of CCE Kavita Sharma along with Niamh O’Brien, CCE Undergraduate Director, dropped by to discuss the many events and programs the center holds each year as well as to solicit the Council’s feedback on what other career services students are looking for. After detailing the myriad of opportunities CCE offers, each named with varying levels of acronymic success (CCASIP, CEE, CEO, CCA, STEP, CAE… the list goes on), the two fielded questions from council and audience members.

One of the first and perhaps most obvious questions regarded CCE’s efforts to diversify industry networking events and listings on LionSHARE. Sharma answered that that’s one of the Center’s most pressing goals, however a big part of it means finding organizations that understand how to present the position they’re offering in a way that is (or at least appears to be) fulfilling for students. She added if the listing’s not up to snuff, the CCE team will often press employers to pay students.

(more…)

The oft-deleted weekly CCE email from Niamh (pronounced “Neev”; it’s Irish) O’Brien contained a special surprise today—a shout-out to the 118th Varsity Show, in which she was sharply parodied by Rebekah Lowin, CC ’14, as a scheming villain who changed the Core into a series of classes on unethical businesses for future I-bankers and consultants. Instead taking offense, Niamh congratulated Rebekah on “her flawless performance as the show’s protagonist.” Here’s the full email:

Did you see the Varsity Show?
What an incredible display of the talent and creativity that makes the Columbia community such a pleasure to be a part of! Congratulations to the entire cast and crew, especially Rebekah Lowin, for her flawless performance as the show’s protagonist!

Regarding the show’s story of the struggle many students face when it comes to choosing a career path: We’ve all been there and we’re here to help you uncover your passions and get to a place where you can fulfill them. Do some digging and you’ll find a very broad range of opportunities to do what you love!

Enjoy the last day of classes and good luck with final exams. And, to the students involved the 118th Annual Varsity Show, thank you for making our Friday night so witty and fun!

Best,
Neeeeeev and the rest of CCE

If you’re still looking for a way to make yourself useful this summer, check out LionShare for hands-on opportunities clearly relating to your academic pursuits that totally won’t require extra explanation in future interviews:

"Applicants must be competent and confident in a wild environment"—does Campo count?

Tentative plans for the new Carlton lounge

Sean Zimmermann reports from last night’s ESC meeting.

The majority of the meeting was spent discussing the new election bylaws of the ESC constitution. As reported last year, the ESC will begin holding public e-board elections this year. Under the changes, the members of the senior class council will choose one of its members to serve as the Elections Commissioner and chair the elections committee, which would run the general elections. The majority of the debate focused on whether the new elections should use a ticket system or an individual candidate system. Under the ticket system, the entire e-board would be elected as a single ticket/party, whereas under the individual system, students could still have parties, but voters could pick and choose candidates from different parties. Ultimately, the council voted against the ticket system.

ESC, in collaboration with their graduate student counterpart EGSC, has submitted a proposal with improvements to Carlton Lounge. The proposals includes calls for new (non-wobbly) furniture, increased outlets, and improved WiFi.

Alumni Affairs and Pre-Professional Development Liaison Bora Kim spoke with CCE about showing average SEAS GPAs alongside other student GPAs to employers. There are concerns that engineering students are treated unfairly by CCE, as Columbia College students on average have higher GPAs. Therefore, if a CC and SEAS students apply for the same position, CC students will appear better on paper.

Swanky improvements via Wikimedia Commons

Bwog hates to break it to you: it’s job-search time. Continuing our series of sitting down and writing about it, an anonymous posterior with perfect interview posture shares what it’s like to be in the hot seat.

No staff-member would dare brave the CCE waiting room pre- or post-interview long enough to snap a photo.

What has five minutes to memorize a stock pitch, two stiffly crossed legs, and one weirdly plush, Columbia-crested black leather folder with several copies of a resume inside?

You, and every single person you’ve ever shared an awkward cross-Lit-Hum glance with—if you’re one of the sophomores or juniors who’s joined the race for a summer finance internship, that is.

Welcome to the waiting room bench in Columbia’s Center for Career Education—the kids are calling it the CCE. You’re about to spend what feels like the next two hundred years here; 35 minutes later, you’ll stumble out of the building, still subconsciously reciting that day’s DOW, NASDAQ, and S&P ratings over and over again in the back of your mind, buttoning and unbuttoning the jacket of your awkwardly fitted suit, and you’ll have no idea where you sat or how it felt as you awaited your time slot.

Little will you know: the secret’s in the sit. (more…)

Yes CCE, we know that it’s hard to get jobs in today’s uneasy job market, where there is hardly any work. But that still doesn’t mean that you have to hardcore beat us over the head with posters of pirate ships like it’s too hard for us to find a job sans mnemonic device or abused pun. We get it, pirate ships and internships both contain ships, we aren’t that hardheaded. By the way, the sails on that ship look a little bit flaccid.

Yeah, I'm a summer analyst for a pirate ship.

Bwog just received word that there is (good!) free food at CCE right this minute, so go swoop in like vultures!  Email below:

Due to a canceled event tonight in Low, there is now a ton of food available for the taking at CCE. Stop on by East Campus for some delicious food!

Liz King

Assistant Director, Programming

Center for Career Education, Columbia University

Update, 1:01 PM: The free food has been identified as “healthy stuff” composed of carrots, hummus and “random veggies.”  The same anonymous tipster on the scene reports it is “hardly a ton…a small table spread.”

For all you forward-looking seniors- the Center for Career Education is extending an invitation to “launch the academic year and your job search” at their first career fair of the semester. It runs until 12 today in Low Library. (So Days on Campus isn’t the only time you’re allowed up there after all…)

According to the CCE website, the event will provide networking opportunities with Columbia alumni in a variety of fields. Will it provide breakfast as well?

Dress code is “business formal,” but underclassmen need not iron their slacks just yet- the event is open only to CC, SEAS, and GS seniors, along with this year’s graduating students in GSAS and the Schools of Architecture, the Arts, and Continuing Education.

Photo via rics.org

The CCE offers a lot of services, as anyone who receives its incessant weekly e-mails knows. It will pretend to interview you for a job and try to make you crack. It will describe the career options for your major and try to make you cry. It will even give you tips on resume scents if you ask nicely. But its most important task is to find you a job. And employment, as you may or may not be aware, is kind of thin on the ground right now.

The CCE wants you to know it’s trying really, really hard. It wants you to know so badly, in fact, that it e-mailed your parents (they who pay the bills) telling them so. This morning, a message landed in parental inboxes across the country describing its response to the recession, the “Hire Columbians” initiative, in which the CCE promotes connections between student/graduate employees and alumni/affiliate employers.

It might have been easier to write, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and leave it at that, but then we wouldn’t know about “Columbia Champions,” who are constant and fearless, and will rescue you from ROUS’s if you’re wearing light blue.

The point is, the CCE is keeping up the fight. On one hand, it’s nice that you’re getting off the hook for not filling out a dozen job applications over spring break. On the other, anything that prompts a mental comparison between the CCE and the Little Engine That Could is a little worrying. Click for the full e-mail. (more…)

Apparently the job opportunities Columbia hooks up don’t all involve $145,000, 80-hour work weeks, maybe some blow, and a fancy suit. The Center for Career Education’s temp work listserv has a listing offering a job with $80, 8 hours of work, maybe some dry ice, and, well, possibly still a suit.  It may not be as “high-powered” as a career in finance, but is there really any higher power than the power of magic? How does the chance to “possibly assist on stage” sound for an “exit opportunity”?

3) DESCRIPTION: Magician seeks strong, handy, smart assistant to help transport props to gigs, run errands, and in the future… possibly assist on stage.

QUALIFICATIONS: Knowledge of showbiz, sound, lighting, etc. a plus. Must possess a nice-looking shirt and dress pants, or a dark suit. We can meet in person to go over the details.

DURATION: Thursday, January 25, 2007 Approx. 3 to 11 PM

COMPENSATION: $10/hour

CONTACT: Susanna Mitton

Organization: Mark Mitton

email: suus64@yahoo.com

Also, Spec’s departed sex columnist continues to make headlines. Spec writer Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein’s article on Miriam Datskovsky for the Philadelphia Weekly  is less controversial than ya’ll might be used to, but is worth checking out.

- DHI

Nussbaum certainly doesn’t “Wu”

Subway savior can find like-minded saviors outside Tom’s

Probably no Bollinger Halls in our future. Renaming Hamilton goes to highest bidder.

Offers of int’l internships in many fields (in addition to finance) – and students still cry “Finaaaannccee”

Staff agrees: Creative writing major = “Ehh”

Why can’t we all just … you know the rest