How You'll Benefit

Students are often surprised by the differences between the environments of college and industry work when adjusting to their first job. This adjustment often may take many months and is not only costly for the employer in terms of lost effectiveness, but difficult for new graduates who may feel disoriented by expectations and language that is foreign to their previous experience.

The Sophomore Experience will help you improve your employment readiness and competitiveness by learning about the professional environment before getting that first post-graduation job. We like to think of it as a mini Institute for Professional Development. In fact, students who enroll in the Sophomore Experience should also consider more in-depth skills development via the Institute in their junior year.

After the conference, you'll be able to do the following: 

1. Apply the process of discovering an individual’s strengths within the environment around them as well as analyze your own strengths, while embracing them.
2. Properly socialize and introduce yourself in a group environment.
3. Properly attire yourself for the following: an interview, business lunch or dinner, and a normal day at work.
4. Initiate a meaningful discussion, evaluate the information and produce a solution in a group setting.
5. Conversationally, and confidently, present to a group.

Learned skills include:

Communication
Oral  

• conversation
• presentations
• meeting participation
• networking

Written  

• proposals
• reports
• assessment / analytical
• marketing and sales / promotional pieces

• problem identification
• problem analysis
• problem resolution

• Leadership, motivation
• Decision-making
• Planning
• Organizing
• Delegation
• Team building

• Procedures
• Promotional ideas
• Strategies
• Designs

• Defining responsibility and authority
• Determining work assignments
• Implementation, administration