Zeb Talley III, a career counselor at NC A&T, hosted an information session Nov. 9, at 6 p.m. in the Memorial Student Union regarding the Grad School fair.

The guest speaker was Dr. Blackwell. The Howard University alum works as a recruiter for the Professional School of Social Work.

She briefly gave students an overview of the programs offered at Howard and discussed the application process.

“Tonight’s information session is a means of hopefully giving them an idea of some ways that they can prepare. Also, tomorrow [Nov. 10] there will be a lot of assistance from the recruiters that are actually participating,” said Talley.

Recruiters from grad schools were in Stallings Ballroom on Nov. 10. The Office of Career Services (OCS) is willing to help students with the application process, letters of interest, resumes, etc.

Zeb Talley III has worked for OCS for five years. A total of 45-50 grad schools come to this event every November.

He believes the career fair is beneficial for students for more than one reason. “It gives them an idea of what they need to do in terms of grad school preparation, financial aid process, scholarship process, the application process, testing process. A lot of students aren’t aware of hurdles that you have to cross in order to get in grad school and it’s a good preparation tool for that” said Talley.

OCS is expecting a numerous amount of students to participate in the Grad School Fair. It’s opened to all classifications and freshman students are even encouraged to come. Talley encourages students to bring “Copies of your resume and if you have copies of your transcripts that would be helpful as well some schools do ask you on the spot. Some students have brought letters of recommendation and that’s acceptable as well.”

“Going into the fair I knew exactly who I wanted to talk too, I also knew a lot about the program. But talking to the representatives who gave a ton of information, this helped me in making a decision” said Kevin Huntley, a senior and information technology major.

On the website, the OCS provides the listing of schools that are attending the fair and they also have information on how to create a resume and information on interviewing skills.

“Students who are familiar with the career fair setup can get some guidance before they come on kind of what to expect and to prepare for the whole situation” said Talley.

“I went to the grad fair, trying to get more information on the management program at Wake Forest. I also wanted to see if other schools would offer what Wake Forest was doing,” said Huntley.

Some advice for students who take interest in grad school would be “To start early. I think one of the advantages of going to grad school is being prepared and to know earlier in the process what you need to do in order to go to grad school; as oppose to waiting for your senior year to kind of put your papers and your applications together to know as a freshman or a sophomore what classes you need to be taking, what test you need to be preparing for and that way by your senior year its more of a matter of just completing your applications and sending the appropriate information to where you want to attend” said Talley.

• Sha’Keevia Hughes & Chelsea Haizlip