USU’s Grad and Major Fairs combine to help students further their education

By Ashley Springer

 

Utah State University’s Grad Fair and Major Fair will combine for the first time on Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Taggart Student Center. 

Last year the fairs were planned separately but happened, coincidently, on the same day.

 

“Last year it happened by accident and we got a lot of favorable responses,” said Diana Maughan, who is in charge of Grad Fair and is the recruiting coordinator for Career Services. "We thought we would try it again.”

 

“We’re hopeful that it will be a good combination this year,” said Niki Weight, an academic adviser in the Exploratory Advising Center and one of the organizers of the Major Fair, “but that’s why we partnered — to see if it is a good partnership.”

 

Organizers are hopeful the combination of the two fairs will prove useful to students.

 

Maughan said the combination will allow students the opportunity to attend the Major Fair and then the Grad Fair to see if there is a graduate program to fit with what they want to do educationally.

 

“A lot of students may know what they want to go to graduate school for but not know what major to go for, or they might know what their major is but not know about graduate school options,” Weight said. “We’re hopeful it’s a better fit to allow students to explore the whole facet of higher education.”

 

The main goal of the Grad Fair is to assist students in furthering their education and “giving them opportunities to explore and meet with graduate programs that they may be interested in going into,” Maughan said.

 

According to Major Fair organizers, the goal of the fair is to provide students the opportunity to speak with representatives from departments for majors, minors and other programs to learn about the options at the university.

The Major Fair will also be featuring a new system — card readers — to count the number of students who attend.

 

The card readers allow students to swipe their cards as they enter the fair, giving organizers a count of students in attendance. According to Weight, organizers used to have paper evaluations for students to fill out but not everyone would.
 

The card readers will also allow fair organizers to use the information to send follow-up surveys to students who attended in order to collect suggestions concerning the fair and to see if those students would like any further information.

 

The Major Fair will be taking place in the international lounge in the TSC with the Grad Fair down the hall in the TSC ballroom.