Alumni, Companies Recruit & Advise at Career Day

Building on the success of the first Career Day in February, the Career Center at Thomas Aquinas College, California, organized a fall semester Career Day on Saturday, October 14. Under the leadership of College and Career Counselor Dan Selmeczy and Business Club member David Ivory (’24), the event gave students a sense of what their futures might hold.

Representatives from numerous companies — including several alumni — gave short presentations throughout the morning, describing their organizations and arranging interviews with interested students. Companies included Veritas Managed Solutions, represented by Robert Mohun (’09) and John Richard (’13); AdjusterPro, represented by Jessica Pipes (’16); DFINITY, represented by Maximilian Summe (’07); and more.

In the afternoon, Mr. Summe delivered the keynote address to a sizeable crowd in St. Cecilia Hall’s Fritz B. Burns Auditorium. “When you graduate from TAC, you will be in ‘the community of those who know,’” he said, referencing a phrase from the College’s Commencement exercises, before adding with a laugh, “You may also aspire to remain in the community of those who eat.” 

But rather than thinking of a job solely as a means of staving off starvation, Mr. Summe encouraged students to look at careers in a more positive light, chiefly by rethinking their approach to work. “Work is how we understand the physical world,” he explained. “Knowing the thing and knowing the description of the thing are just not the same. If they were, a good writer could write a book that made you a good painter. But if you want to paint well, you have to actually paint — and you start by painting badly.” 

Learning to work well both educates and forms the worker, and certain habits especially conduce to the learning process — habits which, Mr. Summe emphasized, students form in the classroom: attentiveness and a willingness to act. “If you’re not paying attention, you miss what the author says,” he observed. “And if you don’t speak in class, you don’t test your own understanding.” As one example of how — and how not — to manage the transition from building those habits in the classroom to cultivating them in a career, Mr. Summe recounted his own professional journey into coding, software engineering, and web design. 

After the keynote, company representatives and students mingled in the foyer of St. Cecilia Hall, networking and conducting impromptu interviews. “I’ve never been to a fair like this,” said one company representative. “I could see myself hiring almost any of the students here! At larger fairs I’ve attended in the past, it’s been fewer and farther between.”