Students gain invaluable career advice during Panther Alumni Week

Follow your passion and you will find your way to a successful career. This was the top advice given to students last week, when 250 alumni came back to FIU to share their career experiences during Panther Alumni Week.

Students meet with alumni at the Robert Stempel School of Public Health and Social Work Alumni Panel.

Panther Alumni Week brought over 1,200 students together with alumni to discuss their career paths and what can be done during college to best prepare for jobs in their fields of study. Throughout the week, alumni spoke in individual classrooms and sat on panel discussions.

Liliana Piedra ’86 said that even undecided students can start exploring their talents and skills now by taking a multiple-intelligences survey, which determines linguistic, musical, interpersonal and other strengths.

Piedra, who spoke to a First-Year Experience class with four other alumni, is a teacher at Sunset Elementary whose children now attend FIU. One way to discover your passion, she said, is by getting involved in groups on campus.

“Become involved in something,” said Piedra. “Connect to a community of any sort, because that’s how you begin to network.”

Panelists at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work Alumni Panel stressed keeping an open mind when entering the workforce.

Mark Preciados MPH ’12 said being willing to relocate to Boston helped him land his position at the FDA. Panelist Elizabeth Ross MPH ’13, founder and CEO of Resources to Empower, pointed out that sometimes people are so focused on getting a job that caters to what they’ve been looking for that they miss great opportunities that may not quite fit their plan.

“Look for an experience, not a job,” she stressed.

Related: College of Education graduates share advice during Panther Alumni Week

Several alumni warned students to be mindful of how they present themselves on social media.

“Social media is like a big global newspaper,” said Carlota Jurado-van der Eijk ’86, founder of CJV Hospitality. Everything posted online stays there, in one format or another, forever—and employers will search your name to look for inappropriate online behavior.

“Google yourself and look at the images,” said Giselle Calderon ’09, a branch manager for BB&T bank. “What you see will affect you in the future.”

Even students and alumni who couldn’t make it to campus participated in Panther Alumni Week at the virtual networking hour, an online forum where students connected with alumni via instant messaging.

Beginning to network in college by finding a mentor in your field of study and getting to know your professors outside of class is key because it can lead to experience, recommendations and job opportunities other students won’t have.

“A lot of times it’s who you know,” said Janisse Schoepp MPH ’01, PhD ‘14. “Unless you’re building relationships now, you don’t know what’s out there and the landscape.”

At the Stempel panel, Schoepp helped master’s student Brionna Powell weigh her options between pursuing and a master’s degree in public health or a medical degree. Powell said Schoepp helped her see that she needs to keep an open mind and never limit her career options.

The insight into life after college that alumni offered to students during Panther Alumni Week was invaluable, according to Wasim Maziak, chair of the department of Epidemiology.

“I cannot be prouder of how eloquent and accomplished our graduates are,” he said.