The weather in Minnesota was decidedly chilly in early October, but for the Florida International University (FIU) contingent attending the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA) Conference and Career Expo in Minneapolis, the atmosphere was anything but cold. More than a dozen students and alumni pursued hot job leads and participated in warm networking events between October 8th and 10th.
“This year, students from our International MBA (IMBA), Master of Science in Finance (MSF), Professional MBA and Evening MBA programs—including IMBA student Laura Bacci, who received the NSHMBA Scholarship of $12,000 for the 2009-2010 academic year—participated,” said Barry Shiflett, director, Career Management Services (CMS) in the College of Business Administration.
The college’s team—Shiflett, Elsie Florido, CMS associate director and Luis Casas, director, marketing, communications and recruiting, played a key support role for students as they lined up interviews and navigated the event.
“For example, Heather Thurston, an IMBA-MSF student, was able to turn to us for assistance in meeting employers and she succeeded in obtaining interviews with several companies, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and IBM among them” Shiflett said.
As a university partner to NSHMBA, the college already enjoys a close relationship with the organization, and Shiflett and Florido plan to heed the conference’s message to “Think Ahead. Move Forward.” They will be following up with a number of companies, building relationships that can translate into new job and internship possibilities for the college’s graduate students.
New Corporate MBA gains visibility.
Paxton Riter, the college’s vice president, academic partnerships, used the gathering of high-powered companies to expand the partner base for the business school’s new, fully online Corporate MBA, scheduled to launch on November 30, 2009.
“If a company is a partner, their employees and the employee’s family can take advantage of a preferred tuition rate for our Corporate MBA,” he said. “Being able to meet representatives from about 250 Fortune 500 companies in one place afforded me an excellent chance to build partnerships with corporations whose employees can benefit from the program and from the tuition break.”
