Campus Career Fair Tours: Guides Show Students the Way
First-generation students at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Engineering are getting firsthand advice on how to prepare for and navigate career fairs from dedicated tour guides.
More than 42 percent of freshmen in the University of Illinois Chicago ?are first-generation students. They are students whose parents did not complete a four-year college or university degree. Some are from other countries, different socioeconomic classes or underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, or they may face academic, cultural or financial challenges that other students may not encounter.
First-generation college students often feel uncomfortable and unsure about how to interact with employers participating at internship and job fairs on campus, said Jonna McHugh, assistant director of the college's Engineering Career Center.
She began the tours in 2019. Tour guides, who often are faculty members, help students reach a comfort level by taking them through the fair, offering an overview of the event and how to prepare for it.
Participants typically are first-generation freshmen and sophomores in the engineering school, but upperclassmen who have never attended a fair during their college experience—and may be in a different program at the university—sometimes participate.