Career Night is an event that is put on by the Student Alumni Association and Alumni Director Dave Linscheid. Members of SAA contact various Bethel alum, who agree to come and meet with students for a night and share about their jobs and where their path took them after Bethel. This year I think there were approximately 50 alum who agreed to come back. The event is set up in Memorial Hall. There are tables all around and alums each have a designated spot. Students sign in and get a map of all of alumni that are present and what their careers are. Students may pick and choose to talk to as many alumni as they desire; however, most people choose to only talk to people that are in the same career field as the one they are studying. There are alumni present from many different career areas such as forensic nurses, doctors, marketing specialists, news casters, teachers, dentists, lawyers, engineers, and many more.
As an incentive for coming, each student who has three signatures from alumni that they talked with gets their name put into a drawing for prizes such as Bethel merchandise and any sort of freebies that the alumni bring from their jobs. Often there are many shirts, umbrellas, mugs, and this year I even won an insulated tote/cooler. Pretty cool! There is always pizza and pop afterward too!
I love this night! It’s a lot of fun connecting with alumni who are in the same field as me. Since I will be graduating soon with an education degree, it was fun to get tips for my first year of teaching and things like that. I found Career Night to be well worth my time.