A business suit is not likely high on the list of what first-year students think of when packing for college — but Marietta’s Career Center Director, Betsy Knott, knows it should be.
From internship interviews to presenting at professional conferences, having access to professional business attire is important for every student to have, though many either forget or don’t have the resources to have those items readily available. That’s why building the Career Center’s Career Closet has become one of Knott’s focuses as the new director.
“We know our alumni have these kinds of items in their closets,” she says. “They maybe don’t fit anymore; they maybe have gone out of style; they don’t like them or they’re in the back of their closet. If an alum can take just a few minutes and think, ‘Is this something that someone else could get better use out of that I’m not getting anymore?’ send it to us, and we can make decisions on what we keep in our inventory.”
Sequoya Yates ’20, a student staff member in the Career Center, knew she would need business attire before she arrived as a freshman because she was a Petroleum Engineering major and would often interact with people in the industry. She wants to help fellow students who may not be able to afford to buy business clothing for interviews by providing access to proper attire.
“Right now, the priority is to just get new clothes because we don’t have a lot of variety in sizes or things student can wear,” Yates says. “I’m reaching out to alumni via email, and at Homecoming I planned a table talk with alumni to get some clothing donations.”
Another goal that Knott has set is to connect more alumni with students interested in learning about specific fields. She restructured a room in the Career Center, equipping it with a webcam/TV unit so alumni can give live web presentations to groups of students about their specific career paths — what worked, what didn’t and what they would do differently. Knott is trying to fill a portion of the spring semester’s calendar — Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings — with alumni willing to share details of their professions from the perspective of a variety of different regions throughout the country.
“We want to recruit alumni who are interested in sharing the details of their career journey, from graduation to where they are now. Students will benefit immensely from hearing about how The Long Blue Line communicated their liberal arts degree to a success story, and there are details about a range of industries that our alumni can share that I simply won’t know.”
Support the Career Closet
Mail gently used business attire to:
Marietta College Career Center
215 Fifth St.
Marietta, OH 45750