On February 24^th, Nichols College Career Services will host its annual Career and Internship Fair. This event starts at 1p.m. and goes until 3:30p.m. in the Athletic Center. Professional attire is not required, but strongly preferred.

There are 73 businesses that will be in attendance at the 2015 Nichols College Annual Career & Internship Fair.  Some employers that will be in attendance include Nordstrom, New England Revolution, State Street Corporation, Monster, Mohegan Sun, Lowes, Ford, Fidelity Investments and Federal Bureau of Investigation – Boston. These employers are offering a variety of potential opportunities for students, alumni and community members. These opportunities include roughly 105 full-time positions, 40 internships, a variety of part-time work and so much more! Not to mention, there will be over 25 alumni who have made their way back to campus seeking to hire members from the Nichols community.

There will be tables set up all around the Athletic Center so make sure to grab a map to find where the companies’ tables are located.  Countless people have told me how grateful they are for the Career & Internship Fair because it is where they found current and past internships and also made many connections.

Are you in need of a professional headshot for LinkedIn? There will be a booth set up in the main entrance of the Athletic Center to have your LinkedIn profile pictures taken. Make sure to take advantage of this opportunity! Keeping your profile picture current and professional will allow employers to recognize you more easily and give them the ability to imagine you working with them.

Networking is an integral part of the Career Fair and business world alike. Going to this event means you can connect with more people, IF you make a genuine effort to talk with them. This is a great chance for you to step out of your comfort zone and have conversations with people you have never met. To be successful in the business world you have to be willing to approach anyone without being afraid. This comes with much practice, but the earlier you start the better off you will be. This event is mandatory for juniors and seniors; however, it is strongly recommended for freshman and sophomores to attend for the experience. The more you expose yourself to new people and professional situations, the stronger networking skills you will possess.

Remember the Titans is a gripping movie about an integrated football team, the Titans.  This past week, Nichols had the honor of welcoming to campus Herman Boone, the real-life coach of the Titans football team and now a motivational speaker. I was excited to hear from Coach Boone because I have watched the movie so many times. Honestly, I could probably recite the whole movie by memory. Any time it comes on TV, I always watch it even if it was on the night before.

In 1971, the superintendent of the high school asked Boone to coach the football team, over the current Coach Yoast, who was white. However, Coach Boone was not just coaching; he was bringing people together, two races that have been brought up to not like each other. This was a challenge, but a challenge he wanted to take.

Boone started off the night by talking about all of the racial issues that were happening during that time. Boone did this to help us realize how difficult it was to bring all of the male athletes together as one. He worked on respect because he believed that was the greatest thing for a team. Boone discussed how at the first team meeting, many white kids told him they did not want to play for him because he was black, and many black kids told him they did not want to play because they did not want to be on the same team as the white players. However, Boone said, “Once they learned to respect one another for their differences, they really became the team I believed they could be.”

Boone gave us some insight about his coaching skills and about the movie. My favorite part of the movie was when he took the athletes to Gettysburg College for football camp. This is when the guys began to realize their differences and embrace them. One scene from the movie showed Boone waking them up at 3 am for a run to the location of the Battle of Gettysburg. However during his talk, he told us that did not actually happen; instead of running at 3 am, he took them on buses at 9 pm. This was a little disappointing for me because during this part the boys were really starting to become closer. They would not let one of their teammates fall behind.

On the bus back from football camp, Coach Boone said, “I saw a black man dancing to country western music and that is when I knew I had a football team.”

To make the night even better we got free green t-shirts which said, “Remember the Bison” (a good one for Nichols). At the end of the speech Coach Boone signed autographs. The line was long and I could not wait, but that goes to show how truly inspirational he was and how much students enjoyed his presentation.

Author and speaker, Wes Moore came to Nichols on November 19^th to talk about his book, The Other Wes Moore. I enjoyed going to this event because he talked about his life, the other Wes Moore’s life, and writing the book. The bookis about two boys who have the same name and lived blocks away from each other in Baltimore, Maryland. They both took different paths to end up where they are today. The speaker Wes Moore went to college and then went into the military, the other Wes Moore lived a life of crime and is now serving a life sentence.

The most interesting part of his speech for me was when he tried to come up with a book title. He listed six titles and told his publishers they could pick one of the six. The publishers had a different idea; they wanted to name the book The Other Wes Moore. At first Moore had his doubts because he was not sure if he wanted his name on the cover of the book. For example, he made a comment about how one does not see J.K. Rowling naming her book The Other J.K. Rowling. He also mentioned how the book was not about him and how he did not want people to think it was all about him. So having the book title as The Other Wes Moore, may give off the impression that it is. He wanted everyone to know that the book is primarily about “the other”. Wes also talked about how everything on the inside of the book is what the author wants to get out into the world. Everything on the outside the book is what the publisher wants the readers to see. With that comment he said how he had no idea who the little boy on the front cover of his book was.

A student asked Wes, what motivated him to write a book. I was glad someone asked this question because I wondered this myself. He said one time when he was listening to a celebrity speak he heard the guy say, “I just want to say thank you to all of my haters.” Then he said, “Haters do not motivate me, that just sounds dumb.” He began by talking about how his family and readers motivate him. Also, talking about his book makes him want to keep writing because he sees all of the people listening to him.

To this day, Wes Moore the author, still visits Wes in jail. He does it mainly because they have the same name. When he first heard about the prisoner, Wes Moore and his story, he visited him in jail, not knowing that he was going to write a book about him. So even though the book is written, he still enjoys talking to Wes and answering any weird questions he may have like, “What did you have for dinner yesterday?” even though he already asked it before. He does those things because the other Wes Moore is in jail for life.

His speech was very powerful. I was interested the whole entire time he talked. Not once did I wish I was somewhere else.