The annual New York City Site Trip will no longer be open to freshman due to increasing demand.
The 10th annual trip, hosted by the Career Center, the Kogod School of Business and the School of Communication, will take full-time sophomores, juniors, seniors and grad students to New York Jan. 10-12.
For the first time this year, the application process will be competitive, transitioning over from a first-come, first-serve system, according to Bridget O’Connell, the director of outreach and marketing for the Career Center, who runs the program.
“We’ve introduced a competitive application process to try to identify the students who have the greatest focus and level of professionalism and who will be most prepared to make the most of the trip, and who will really seize the opportunities to build relationships with the alumni and the employers with whom we’ll be meeting,” O’Connell said.
The application will be available on AU’s Career Web and the Kogod Career Source Nov. 1-6.
The program allows students the opportunity to network with employers in New York, O’Connell said.
“We’re really looking for students to come and either pursue their specific interest further and learn about careers or organizations that they know they’re interested in, or perhaps they don’t know the specifics, but they have a passion for a certain academic interest and to identify careers that relate to this discipline,” O’Connell said.
The trip is targeted to students majoring in marketing, advertising, public relations, journalism, television and film, according to the Career Center website. It promotes career exploration and networking in the student’s intended career field, O’Connell said.
Some companies that the group visited during last year’s trip include CBS News, Discovery Channel, FOX News, Food Network, Nickelodeon, Ogilvy & Mather, and Steve Madden. Program organizers will announce the sites for this year by late November, according to the Career Center’s website.
Networking is critical to career success, and building networks early on is beneficial for students, said Arlene Hill, the director of the Kogod Center for Career Development.
For Amy Marcelo, a senior in Kogod who traveled on the 2011 trip, a major benefit is meeting like-minded AU students and alumni.
“It’s just interesting to hear what everyone else is coming from and going for in the same kind of field that I’m interested in,” Marcelo said.
Sylvia Brookoff, a junior in SOC, also finds the alumni connections to be a major advantage of the trip.
“It was particularly great that we were speaking with them because they could relate to our experience and offer us more valuable advise on how to transition from American to where they are now,” Brookoff said.
For communications and marketing students visiting New York, almost every major news organization, public relations firm, marketing firm and advertising agency has an office in Manhattan, if they’re not headquartered there, O’Connell said.
The trip began 10 years ago, when SOC Dean Larry Kirkman worked with the Career Center to respond to student interest for careers in New York following graduation. Kogod quickly became involved with the trip due to the natural relationship between marketing and communications, O’Connell said.
All attending students will be responsible for planning and paying for travel to New York and accommodations in the city. There will also be a $100 registration fee for the trip, according to O’Connell.
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