Being a graduate student has much to do with branding and professional development. Here’s an opportunity for graduate students which entails both. Tech’s Career, Research, and Innovation Development Conference (CRIDIC) is a career fair, poster competition and conference for graduate students. It was originally started by the Graduate Student Government Association, and it has grown in the number of attendees of both students and companies. The goals of the conference are to prepare graduate students to handle the job market as it continues to change and, according to grad.gatech.edu, to connect graduate students of all degrees with professionals in research, industry, consulting and government, nonprofits, management and entrepreneurship.
This year, the CRIDC will be held on February 13th and 14th in the Global Learning Center. It is open to master’s and Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows. Last year, the conference attracted 40 employers and 600 attendees, more than 160 students presented their research and those who presented took home over $40,000 in awards.
I was able to communicate with Sang Yun Han, Vice President of Graduate Events, about the excitement and logistics surrounding the CRIDC. Han informed me that the poster competition tends to be the most exciting moment of the conference with over 180 posters across all of the majors. “It’s always impressive to see all the impacts of the research that our students are working on at Georgia Tech” Han elaborated.
Graduate students and employers have given positive feedback surrounding the event. The students like the fact that employers come to hire masters and Ph.D. students. Often times, graduate students attend career fairs only to find out that most of the companies are looking for undergraduate students. “It was important that we created an avenue for our students to directly meet employers that are looking to hire graduate students” said Han. The companies most enjoy speaking with students during panel and hearing about their research during the poster competition.
When it comes to deciding which companies to bring in, Han explained that “it requires a lot of brainstorming, working with C2D2 advisors, such as Robbie Ouzts, and taking extra steps to reach out to companies.”For more information about the schedule, competitions, panelists, registration, and contact information, visit the website here: http://grad.gatech.edu/cridc/about. To see a short clip of the event from last year, look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET6LWb6J2xw&t=9s.