{"id":23480,"date":"2025-10-22T00:00:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=23480"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:31:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T23:31:40","slug":"fall-extravaganza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/fall-extravaganza\/","title":{"rendered":"Fall Extravaganza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
A photo of the Center for Professional Pathways. | Photo by Isaac Garcia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Oct 22 2025 | Isaac Garcia | Sports Editor<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Oct. 29, students are invited to the Pacific Room at the Werner University Center to participate in Fall Extravaganza from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Jennifer Hansen, who is the career development coordinator for the Center for Professional Pathways, described Fall Extravaganza as \u201ca career fair with a twist,\u201d and continued by saying, \u201cCareer fairs are typically halfway boring because you\u2019re going in a little intimidated because there\u2019s a whole bunch of professionals in a room to talk to. So we try to liven it up a little bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The event will include a bingo game where students are incentivized to talk to as many professionals as possible, of which there will be 50. Some of the organizations that will be attending are Salem-Keizer School District, Salem Health, the FBI and for the first time, the state of Oregon will be attending in search of cybersecurity interns. For those interested in graduate school, the University of Oregon, Willamette University and Western\u2019s own occupational therapy program will be attending as well. On top of all that, there will be food and prizes from churros and corn dogs to a drawing for a $200 Amazon gift card at the end of the event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This will be the second year of Fall Extravaganza, following a bit of reinvention. \u201cWe used to do a general career fair in the fall. (It) just didn\u2019t work real well. It was like our students didn\u2019t connect with the fact that it was a general one,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cSo I figured I\u2019d give it another shot for a general career fair and change it up, so it\u2019s Fall Extravaganza. I started this last year and we\u2019ve had a great turnout.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The event isn\u2019t just for upperclassmen. Fall Extravaganza is also a great resource for students just starting their college careers to get an idea of what they can do early to put themselves in the best position to find employment in their chosen field post-graduation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Three weeks after Fall Extravaganza, the Center for Professional Pathways will be hosting CJ ProConnect, aimed at careers in the Criminal Justice field such as medical examiners and forensics, which will indeed be represented at the event. The event begins with students having lunch with professionals in the field to help open up communication. When a student registers for the event, they\u2019ll get a question prompt: \u201cIf you could ask anything of a professional, what would you ask?\u201d During the meal, the questions students ask will be passed around to professionals who will then answer the questions. Even students outside the criminal justice program may still find something of interest at CJ ProConnect. For example, Psychology majors may be interested to hear about counseling opportunities within local sheriff departments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students interested in either event should register as soon as possible on Involve, otherwise known as Presence, in order to make sure there will be enough food and snacks at both events. If students cannot make either event, the Center for Professional Pathways, located in room 205 of the Student Success Center, is still an excellent resource for all students. Hansen mentioned that there seems to be a misconception that only students ready for careers should utilize the department\u2019s resources, but she encourages anyone to pay the center a visit: \u201cCome and see us from your first day here, because we can help you from point A all the way through point Z and beyond,\u201d Hansen said. Students can also get resume help, mock interviews, job search assistance and much more. \u201cI highly recommend mock interviews,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cI cannot stress how important it is to be interviewed by someone where it doesn\u2019t count. Because you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To learn more about the resources the Center for Professional Pathways provides, students can go online to <\/span>https:\/\/wou.edu\/professional-pathways\/students\/<\/span><\/a> and take a look through the site as well as make an appointment with a counselor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlsports@mail.wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Fall Extravaganza","_seopress_titles_desc":"Students can join the Center of Professional Pathways Oct. 29 to explore career opportunities","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":"saragerrick","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23480"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23494,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23480\/revisions\/23494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}