Career Center Final Project: Contact has been made...

Last night i decided to get the ball rolling on this project. I composed an email that i sent out to five members of the 16 member career center office staff.

Here's what the email said...

Ms. Savoca,

my name is joshua seidman. i am currently a junior at stony brook university majoring in journalism and physics.

this semester one of the courses that im enrolled in is JRN 320. for this class i have been assigned a final project where i am expected to write an article, make a 2 minute news broadcast and make an online photo gallery about a topic on campus.

for this assignment id like to focus on the university's career center and i was wondering if you would be willing to assist me in this project. ideally, id like to interview several of the career center's staff. the interviews would be recorded on a video camera and then used for this assignment.

the purpose of the story would be two-fold:

1) to inform students about the function of the career center and how they can utilize the various programs it offers.

2) to explore if the career center has played a bigger role on campus this semester due to the current financial crisis.

some of the questions that i would be asking are:

- Have students been using the career center more this semester due to the financial problems?
- What is the type of advice that the career center gives to students?
- What are the options and services the career center offers students?
- Why are these services useful and important?
- How does the career center help students get in contact with possible future employers?
- Has the advice changed at all due to the current recession?
- What job markets and majors have been the most negatively impacted by the recession?
- Have any job markets/majors benefited from the recession?
- What are some of the things students can do to adapt their career to survive during a recession?

please let me know if this is a possibility. id be happy to stop into the office at some point either Monday or Tuesday of this week to discuss the project further. the assignment is due on friday december 12th and thus id like to get started on the interviews some time this week.

thank you so much for your time and i hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Joshua Seidman
516-732-2143

I figured that i might as well increase my chances and send the email to as many employees as possible. It turned out that this plan of action worked. This morning i awoke to find an email in my inbox from Marianna Savoca, the director of the Career Center.

She informed me that she would be more than happy to assist me in the project. She and I set up a preliminary meeting for Tuesday, December 2nd at 2:30 in the afternoon .

Hopefully when the meeting is done i will have dates set up for when i can interview several of the employees, shoot b-roll and take pictures of the center and get the names of some students to interview.

Until then...