Third Annual Engineering Job & Internship Fair a Success

On February 5, the Tivoli Turnhalle buzzed with enthusiastic engineering students on the hunt for internships and jobs. Twenty-one companies attended the third annual Engineering Job and Internship Fair, which drew almost 300 students. The CU Denver student chapters of the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) and Tau Beta Pi sponsored the event, along with the university Career Center and Experiential Learning Center.

“We had 50 percent more participating companies compared to last year, with many returning companies from previous years’ events,” said Maryam Darbeheshti, faculty sponsor SWE. “There’s a lot of good energy here today, on both sides of the tables.”

David Chau, a 2014 graduate from the computer science program, attended with his current employer, ReadyTalk. “It’s definitely different being on this side of things and seeing students that I knew last year come through here,” he said. “We talked to at least 15 solid candidates today…there are definitely students who are ready.” ReadyTalk has participated in all three engineering job and internship fairs—Chau landed an internship with the company during his junior year at the 2013 event.

Students attending the fair appreciated the variety of companies on hand and the opportunity to network with employers who were actively seeing engineering professionals.

Nexenta, a company that develops software defined storage solutions, also has been present at all three fairs. Eric Ray, director of platform engineering with Nexenta, was impressed with the number of viable candidates, and he stressed the importance of events like the job fair to build relationships between companies, CU Denver, and the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

“The students here are different…more focused,” said Ray. “Nexenta is one of the most international companies I’ve worked for, and the unique makeup of the students at CU Denver matches that diversity, which is really great.”

Victoria Broce, a representative from RTD, said that this was one of the best job fairs she has attended. “I like that it’s focused and we know who we’re dealing with,” she said. “We typically don’t take applications on-site, but today, we did. We will definitely be back next year.”

Photos courtesy of the CU Denver Career Center