After outgrowing the Klaus Advanced Computing Building’s fire code last year, the College of Computing decided to take the annual college-specific career fair to a bigger venue. This spring’s CoC Career Fair took place from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Atlanta’s own Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Friday, Jan. 17. The venue was selected to better accommodate the demand from the ever-growing degree program.
Over 180 companies attended, but the student response was underwhelming. Despite free transportation being provided in the form of shuttles shuttling students to and from campus, some students found the accessibility of the event discouraging.
Third-year CE Maya Flores felt the “shuttling back and forth situation made it more difficult to make it to the career fair in between classes.” Flores said, “I feel like the accessibility of the career fair is the whole purpose
of the event.”
Second year CS Jillian LaTour enjoyed the change of venue, stating that “it had much more room to walk around and meet recruiters.”
According to LaTour, recruiters were also excited by the venue change.
“A lot of them pulled out their phones to take pictures, and they were overall happy with their experience,” LaTour said.
This semester, CoC Career Services launched a “Skip the Line” initiative through the Career Fair Plus app where students could reserve a spot in line to speak to popular employers. Through the app, students could also review the employers they spoke to or look at virtual maps of the fair’s layout.
Despite mixed reviews on the off-campus venue, many students still found this year’s career fair a success.
“Who can say that their career fair is [held] on the field of Mercedes Benz?” LaTour asked.
“I talked to a lot of companies,” Flores said, who will be applying to two internship programs she learned about at this event.