In addition to meeting employers, students could visit the Career Fair Ready Room to get advice from Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ alumni, check their appearance, practice their elevator speech and take a professional photo for LinkedIn.

Rosen College students plan and execute the Career Fair every semester as part of a class project, handling every aspect of the event, including the theme, decor, marketing, promotion and lunch menu. The Fall 2015 Career Fair theme was inspired by The Beatles, anchored by the tagline, “Imagine All the Possibilities,” encouraging students to dream big about their futures and pursue their career goals.

Employers who participated in the Fall 2015 Career Fair include:

Learn more about participating in Rosen College’s next Career Fair.

During a pre-departure orientation at Rosen College on May 20, students heard from Rafael Ortega, ’14, who participated in the program last year. Since graduation, Ortega entered the prestigious and selective Marriott Voyage Global Leadership Development Program and is now working at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center.

Due to the success of this program, Rosen College and the Office of Experiential Learning have established a second partnership with the , Japan’s first luxury urban resort. Three hospitality students will work in paid positions at this globally-renowned hotel, located in the middle of a city featuring 17 world heritage sites. Students will depart in late June, and work and live in Kyoto until the end of 2015.

“Japan, as a developed country, is one of the few countries in the world where our students are able to go for paid learning experiences due to its friendly immigration and labor laws for students/interns,” said J.T. Ghim, experiential learning coordinator for Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝â€™s Rosen College. “Partnerships like these will provide our students invaluable opportunities to interact with guests, employees and managers from different parts of the world while working for top-rated companies and learning about their unique management style and service culture.”

Visit Rosen College’s website to learn more about or contact Mr. J.T. Ghim.

Students also visited the Career Fair Ready Room to get advice from Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ alumni, check their appearance, practice their elevator speech and take a professional photo for LinkedIn.

Rosen College students plan and execute the Career Fair every semester as part of a class project, handling every aspect of the event, including the theme, decor, marketing, promotion and lunch menu. The Spring 2015 Career Fair theme was nature and growth, anchored by the tagline, “Branch Out, Get Rooted,” encouraging students to branch out and meet new employers, and get rooted in a new career.

Employers who participated in the Spring 2015 Career Fair include:

For more information about participating in Rosen College’s next Career Fair, visit hospitality.ucf.edu/careerfair.

The Office of Experiential Learning hosts the semiannual event for students to meet with employers seeking intern and co-op students. Forty employers will be participating, such as: Aon, Blue Toad Inc., DiSTi, Edward Jones, Heart of Florida United Way, HostDime.com Inc., Kohl’s, Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas, Siemens, Starwood Vacation Ownership, The Walt Disney Company and Northwestern Mutual.

“This event can be a one-stop-shop for students and employers to meet and learn about one another and match skills and interests to opportunities,” said faculty coordinator Sandra Macaulay Leon-Barth. “It is not uncommon for students to walk away with solid internship prospects as employers are eager to fill their positions with our talented Knights.”

Both paid and unpaid opportunities are available.

Professional attire is required and students should bring resumes and their Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ ID. RSVP at .

For more information and a complete listing of employers attending the event, go to  .

Balint is appreciative of all that Rosen College does to assist students in landing their dream jobs and shares, “Without the Listserv [Hospitality Jobs e-mail], I would most likely not be where I am today.  My internship eventually grew and evolved into a full-time great paying position shortly after, so thank you!”

Today, she is reaching out to Rosen College and Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝â€™s Office of Experiential Learning to recruit high quality students for positions within her company. Balint shares, “It’s like the old saying ‘shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.’  It’s very competitive out there, no doubt, but as long as you have ambition to achieve your dreams, anything is possible.”

She encourages students to start small and do the work that no one else wants to.  “Once you prove yourself,” Balint says, “doors will open up and your hard work will pay off.  If I can do it, anyone can!”

The Experiential Learning curriculum requires Rosen students to gain professional experience in their field of study. Students earn internship credit by completing coursework online and by working for three semesters prior to graduation in paid, progressively more responsible, career-related positions.

To learn more about Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝â€™s Office of Experiential Learning, internship opportunities and the Rosen College Listserv, please visit .

These are just two examples of how is incorporated into science courses at the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝. These projects and others will be shared at the Eighth-Annual Service-Learning Showcase at the Student Union today, April 13. The free event runs from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. in the Pegasus Ballroom. The public is invited.

Service-learning provides opportunities for students to enhance their academic experience by applying what they learn in the classroom to the community, promoting civic engagement and helping to address a community need.

“The children felt like movie stars and were so excited,” said Wei Sam Yuan, a master’s student in biology who participated in the Carillon project.  “They all knew the material and the importance of recycling, and they wanted to help ensure our oceans stay clean.”

While service-learning has long been recognized as instrumental in achieving learning goals in the social sciences and humanities, there is a new push to bring it into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. Thirteen institutions of higher learning were given grant money in 2010 to help bring the benefits of service-learning into the hard sciences, according to the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. Some states have even adopted rules that require service-learning in their science programs.

“There are some things you cannot learn effectively in the classroom,” said Melody Bowdon, an associate professor and director of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝â€™s Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning who has earned several grants to help expand service-learning projects into the hard sciences. “Service-learning invites students to actively engage with their course material and helps them to understand the relevance of their education to the communities where they live and work. Nothing solidifies theoretical learning like sharing your growing knowledge with K-12 students.”

Brittany Bilak and her classmate Jaclyn Sisko presented photos and a memory matching game about creatures in the Indian River Lagoon in Brevard County. They also brought a touch tank to the school so the children could experience the lagoon and realize why it is important to preserve it.

“What I learned was how to better communicate the science I know to people outside the field,” Bilak said. “I feel that scientists need to do a better job of that so people will understand and make good choices.”

And sometimes service-learning projects help expose something that college students need to improve.

For example, students in an Honors Chemistry II lab course partnered with Corner Lake Middle School to collect and analyze water samples. The eighth-graders collected samples from their homes, nearby ponds and the beach, and chemistry students at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ analyzed them. The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ students had to write letters to the middle schoolers explaining their findings.

“The instructor found that many of the students couldn’t concisely communicate their findings to the general public,” Bowdon said. “So now the instructor is expanding the writing component in all of the lab work in that particular class.

For more information about the showcase or to get tips on getting started with service-learning, visit the .

Schwendeman will be joining the 7,671 current volunteers and trainees with the Peace Corps, according to its website.

For Schwendeman, the decision to join the Peace Corps was an easy one. The recent Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ grad knew for years she wanted to serve as a volunteer.

According to Schwendeman, she made the decision to join the Corps one day back when she was in middle school. “I knew all throughout high school that it was a goal that I was working toward, and I started getting serious about it my sophomore year of college,” Schwendeman said.

She started the application process in September 2009 and found out June 1 that she would be going to Niger, a country in western Africa.

For her, the time between applying and being assigned a host country was short. That is not always the case.

There are six steps to the process beginning with an application, which includes two essays and three letters of recommendation, and ending with a preparation for departure.

In between is an interview, a nomination to serve, a medical review and an invitation to serve as Peace Corps volunteer.

Each applicant must also undergo a series of physical, eye and dental exams and must get any dental or eye work needed done and approved during this time.

According to Schwendeman, this step was the one that caused the most anxiety and pain. “One of the requirements is that you have to get your wisdom teeth pulled,” she said. “If there is a possibility that they have to be removed, you have to get them out before you leave.”

Schwendeman had her’s taken out during finals week.

The benefits can far outweigh the seemingly endless amounts of paperwork and doctors visits.

According to Rachel Mast, the recruitment officer for the Southeast Regional Office, involvement in the Peace Corps stands out on a resume. Volunteers learn skills that are very marketable for when they return to the states, Mast said.

The Peace Corps also offers graduates a chance to further their education through the Master’s International program and the Fellows/USA program.

The Master’s International program offers graduates the opportunity to serve for two years overseas, receiving academic credit toward their master’s degree. They then return to school to finish their studies, according to the Peace Corps website.

They can receive scholarships, reduced tuition, paid employment, health benefits, housing or living allowances, depending on the program, at more than 40 schools in exchange for professional internships helping underserved communities in the U.S., according to its website.

Volunteers in the Peace Corps undergo eight to 12 weeks of training aimed at teaching cultural sensitivity, improving their language skills and learning how to design and implement useful and sustainable projects.

Mast, who was a Peace Corps volunteer from 2002 to 2005 in Panama, said the most memorable part of the Peace Corps for her was being able to live in another country and learn about the people and their culture.

As a volunteer, Mast’s in-country expenses were paid for by the Peace Corps. She received enough money to live as the locals did as well as receive dental and medical benefits.

Mast says her experience was life-changing, a sentiment that is shared by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ă˝ staff member Robert Williams, the engineering coordinator for co-ops and internships at the Office of Experiential Learning.

Williams served as a community development agent in Venezuela from 1963 to 1965 as part of an associate program with the Peace Corps called “Action in Venezuela.”

Williams said it was a chance to broaden his horizons, gain a sense of self-worth and see how people live in other countries.

“I found that the one and a half years [there] was a wonderful opportunity to expand my horizons and make a contribution to the world, however small,” Williams said.

Schwendeman is looking forward to having the same feelings as she prepares to leave.

“I’ve never traveled, and I wanted to go somewhere new,” she said. “I wanted an experience that I couldn’t get in America. You’re living at the level of the people who live there. You get to be a member of the community.”

The Peace Corps is actively recruiting to fill positions in six service sectors: agriculture, business, education, environment, health and HIV/AIDS, and youth development, according to a May 24 release.

According to the website, since its beginning in 1961, nearly 200,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in 139 host countries to work on issues ranging from AIDS education to information technology and environmental preservation.

Source: Central Florida Future,  by Jessica Martin, Variety Editor. Published: Sunday, June 6, 2010, updated: Sunday, June 6, 2010