The Fall 2023 Job and Internships Career Fair takes place Oct. 13 at the Pleasantville Campus featuring a plethora of companies interested in meeting university students with bachelor and master levels of education. However, the clear absence of majors centered around the Arts, Media, Communication and Entertainment poses the question of whether careers in the liberal arts and entertainment are valued in today’s workforce.
Host companies include some of the biggest firms involved in healthcare, accounting, education and public service such as Abbott House, The American Red Cross and the Boys and Girls Club. With the University being as diverse as it is, featuring various schools from Seidenberg to Dyson, certain majors are not being as heavily supported or represented at the career fairs and this leaves students in a gray area concerning life post-graduation.
The purpose of a career fair is within the name: an exposition to display available futures for students interested in specific majors that are integral to help a business function. But when specific majors and their associated employers are notably absent, it sends across a grim message, painting a potential image towards the lack of value or opportunity for those pursuing majors and careers in Media, Arts and Entertainment.
Already wired into the minds of college students is the push to seek almost instant employment to an unrealistic level and maintain or upgrade that level of employment by the time of graduation. But when employment associated with your major is not even present at a career fair advertised for everyone, where do you fit in the sphere of employment post-higher education?
As these events are specifically curated to service and supply the students at the University, providing more resources to students from all campuses and majors from Business and Medicine to Communications and Media will create a more efficient output of employment during the enrollment period and up to the stage of graduation.
Such initiative will also assist in fostering a secure and more supportive environment for students attending the University and pursuing majors in Media, Arts and Entertainment, leaving no student behind in the race of employment.
In such a juggernaut of a media market such as New York City and specifically Manhattan, more resources can be channeled into supporting Media, Arts and Entertainment majors as well as all other majors present at the University that potential employers seek to scout from and cater to.
It is evident that skills, education and experience in STEM-related fields of learning are vital in today’s day and age especially with all the hybridity present across industries and access to digitized material for the workforce, but STEM careers alike were sponsored heavily due to a previous void of such a market in the employment world. The last thing that needs to be sponsored at the University is the assisted creation towards another potential void in the workforce. All majors and future careers are valuable and should be marketed as such, with career fairs in mind as well.
Career fairs can also improve their perception in the mind of young students by improving their representation of certain majors and certain groups of students. The upcoming career fair includes opportunities catered to fit students at the bachelor’s and master’s degree levels but mentions no potential fixtures for first or second-year undergraduate students. This goes on to extend towards the employers that were invited. Composed of the many offered opportunities, only two employers posted providing employment in media, entertainment and the arts. This may convey a message of little value or lack thereof in such avenues of employment and may cause students to miss out on important introductory experience.
Such missed opportunists also leave students left out, especially when their main place of education has not assisted in providing more platforms in career fairs to accommodate all majors and all avenues that may be of interest to students.
