I survived Engineering Expo!

I started freaking out slightly on Monday night.

About Expo.

It's Virginia Tech's big Engineering career fair. I had not really talked to recruiters before, or at least not with motives of, you know, some day earning my own money and having a career. Real Life still scares me, mainly just because it is unknown.

But at least I know how to talk to recruiters now. I talked to four companies, and I have to say that's pretty good for a painfully shy freshman. Several of the recruiters were surprised to see freshmen out on the floor. I was a bit of an extra surprise, since my name tag actually said I was a sophomore. Why? I got 30 hours of AP credit. Not a bad reason, but I'm still a newbie.

I had heard conflicting opinions on how students were supposed to dress. Lots of people said that business casual was the absolute minimum, and if you overdress a bit, you stand out in a good way. Then I heard an older student say that she was more nervous when she overdressed, so she suggested just wear business casual. I opted for the dressier option; these people came many miles to talk to us and possibly hire us. And they are successful enough to come tell us about what they do and get us excited about it. So I wore my two suit jackets from Ann Taylor Loft and some dressy pants. (One jacket per day. I just realized that that looks like I wore two at once. No, that would be standing out in a bad way.)

Pretty much all the recruiters I talked to were really nice. I didn't get to hand out any résumés, but that's okay. There's an Internship and Co-op fair in the spring, which is more what I'll want. Though now I have fifteen copies of my résumé printed on nice résumé paper with the watermark going the right way (to say nothing of the eight or nine I printed with the watermark backwards...).

Well, I have an assignment to do on the experience. I didn't get any interviews or offered any internships, but I got something a lot more valuable: I learned to talk to the people who can get you those things.

I'm guessing I'll be freaking out about Expo a lot less next year...