SMET-Oriented Career Services at Baylor

The Office of Career Services at Baylor University has long organized undergraduate-oriented Career Fairs within the campus athletics arena to help support the employment aspiration of students. Currently these are called Hire-A-Bear Career Fairs, with over 100 organizations represented. Interview-practice and resume-preparation workshops and services, and other career counseling resources are promoted throughout the academic year, including on-line resume uploading and interview signup sites. The Career Services Office grew out of Baylor’s Business School and the fairs have historically had a prominent presence of companies seeking students with business majors. Baylor also has a strong School of Education and school districts are invited to participate in a separate Education Fair. Other specialty fairs are targeted toward student athletes, non-profit organizations, and Greater Waco companies. A large percentage of Baylor students major in the liberal and fine arts and as is a common approach elsewhere the fairs have responded to this student segment using general approaches. Baylor’s School of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) is a small and young addition to Baylor’s undergraduate academic constellation. For more than a decade a frequent complaint by Baylor ECS students has been that the Office of Career Services and the Career Fairs had little to offer them. Major within this was the lack of companies at career fairs specifically seeking ECS majors. Conversations with Career Services staff ratified some of these observation and overtures to work together to better serve the needs of ECS graduates were initially thwarted. More recently, an emerging partnership is developing that includes a Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-specific Career Fair, and other ECS-targeted activities, with other improvements and services on the horizon.