Fall Engineering Career Fair sets marks

Right at 1,000 student visits were recorded at the Sept. 18-19 Engineering Career Fair at Club 71 and loge-level spaces in Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium.

With 381 students visiting Sept. 18 and 620 visiting Sept. 19, the attendance breaks the mark of 859 set in 2023, when the Lohr College of Engineering first went to a two-day event. The record for a one-day event was 697 students in 2019. While some students could have visited both days, the 1,001 student visits represents over 60 % of the college’s 2024-25 undergraduate enrollment.

Sanjeev Kumar, dean of the Lohr College of Engineering, said, “The reputation of our students is well established in the industry. They know about the excellent quality of hands-on education our students receive and that the graduates of the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering are prepared to solve tomorrow’s challenges today. 

“The career fair provides students a wonderful opportunity to make personal connections with the companies they might not otherwise be aware of.”

The fair comes at a time of strong job growth in the engineering field, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which also predicts double-digit growth in the hiring of software developers, industrial engineers and mechanical engineers.

There were 124 employers on Sept. 18 when the focus was on agricultural and biosystems engineering, architecture, construction industry and civil engineering.

On the next day, Sept. 19, there were 110 firms, with the focus was agricultural and biosystems engineering, computational science and statistics, computer science, data science, electrical engineering, electronics engineering technology, engineering technology, mathematics, mechanical engineering and operations management.

A turnout of 257 mechanical engineering majors and 117 computer science majors helped boost Day Two student attendance.

The career fair also is a valuable time to make internship inroads, hence the freshman class had the strongest showing. For the two days, attendance totals show 275 freshmen, 169 sophomores, 165 juniors, 185 juniors, 41 master’s degree students and 18 doctoral students.

While the career fair represents a business card and a handshake, for some it produces an interview. The college reports 24 companies conducted 124 formal interviews.

The date for the spring semester career fair is Feb. 12-13.