It’s time for our Fall 2024 Career & Internship Fair! Before you join us on Wednesday, September 18, from 11:30 AM to 3:30 PM, we wanted to share some recommendations on how to make the MOST of your time at the Retriever Activities Center.

MAP your route. Review the employer directory (you can also see a list of employers on Handshake) and determine who you might want to speak with at the Career Fair. Take special note of companies that are hiring within your major and/or your career trajectory of interest. Download the map in the directory and either print it out or notate electronically the booths where these employers will be located. That way, once you arrive at the Career Fair you’ll know exactly where you want to go and who you want to talk to.

OPTIMIZE your resume. Your route is planned, so now you want to make sure that your resume is in top shape prior to the Career Fair. That includes having it clearly and concisely list relevant information, accomplishments, skills, and experience, as well as the top keywords in your industry of interest. If you need some help knowing where to incorporate worthwhile edits, you can review some tips and samples on our website, or stop by our live drop-in hours Monday-Thursday 2-4 PM at the Center. We also have virtual/evening express hours on Fridays from 2-4 PM and one evening per week from 5-7 PM, which can be scheduled in Handshake. Once your resume is ready, print out 15-20 copies and keep them in a folder or padfolio the day of the Career Fair.

SELL your skills. Now that you know who you want to talk to and have an optimized resume, it’s time to practice what you’ll say to these employers. This is where your 30-second commercial comes in. A 30-second commercial (also known as an elevator pitch) is an opportunity to let employers know who you are, highlight a few of your accomplishments, and share how you might bring value to their organization. Before the Career Fair, think about your 30-second commercial. Write it down, and practice it a few times — either in front of a mirror or maybe even in front of family members or friends. You can also use the resource Big Interview and record yourself responding to the “Tell me about yourself” prompt.

TALK to your connections. Once you’ve passed out your resumes and sold employers on your abilities, the work doesn’t end there. After the Career Fair is officially over you want to take the time to follow-up with employers that you were most interested in. This could range from sending a LinkedIn connection request, sending over your resume, or sending an email with specific details about your conversation. With this in mind, it might be worth bringing a piece of paper or a notebook to the fair so you can jot down pieces of conversations you want to remember and draw from in your follow-up correspondence. This allows your messages/emails to be fully personalized, and will make you even more memorable.

By MAPPING your route, OPTIMIZING your resume, SELLING your skills, and TALKING to your connections, you’ll be making the MOST out of your Career Fair experience. Best of luck out there and see you soon!

The Baltimore Ravens are partnering with the non-profit, Strength in Numbers, to create a Ravens Analytics Mentorship Program for underrepresented college students that attend the following local colleges & universities: University of Maryland-College Park, Morgan State, Coppin State, UMBC & Towson University. The program will begin in the Fall’24 semester (October).

•      Students will be given a month long project to work on from the Baltimore Ravens Analytics Team
•     Students will work on this project as a group with other local college students
•     At the end of the project, students will present to the Baltimore Ravens Analytics Team
•     Students will receive a $500 stipend 
•     Application deadline is September 20^th

Please view the attached flyer or click on the link below for more information and to apply.

Baltimore Ravens Analytics Mentorship Program Application- https://forms.gle/5nUxUGzQWiWZrSAq7

UMBC's new Language Technology Seminar Series  has talks from researchers on natural language processing, computational linguistics, speech processing, digital humanities, and more. Join the group here.

AI Resilient Interfaces for Code Generation and Efficient Reading

Dr. Jonathan K. Kummerfeld, University of Sydney

3-4 pm EDT Tuesday, 10 Sept. 2024, ITE 325b at UMBC and online via WebEx

AI is being integrated into virtually every computer system we use, but often in ways that mean we cannot see the decisions AI makes for us. If we don't see a decision, we cannot notice whether we agree with it, and what we don't notice, we cannot change. For example, using an AI summarization system means trusting that it has captured all the aspects of a document that are relevant to you. If the task is high stakes, then the only way to check is to read the original document, but that significantly decreases the value of the summary. In this talk, I will present the concept of AI resilient interfaces: systems that use AI while giving users the information they need to notice and change its decisions. I will walk through two examples of novel systems that are more AI resilient than the typical solution to the problem for (1) SQL generation and (2) faster reading. I will conclude with thoughts on the potential and pitfalls of designing with AI resilience in mind.

Jonathan K. Kummerfeld is a Senior Lecturer (i.e., research tenure-track Assistant Professor) in the School of Computer Science at the University of Sydney. He is currently also a DECRAfellow, and collaborates with a range of academics across the world, including DARPA-funded projects on AI agents that communicate.

The Fall semester is a great time to build your résumé (if you don’t already have one) or update it with the latest information (if you do have one). To help guide your edits along, here are some formatting tips:

• Personalization. When listing out your contact information at the top of your résumé, you may also want to consider including a web link such as your LinkedIn profile (we have appointments to help you build one out if you need one!), a portfolio link (for fields like communication or design), or a github link (for fields like computer science). Utilize the extra real estate at the top of your résumé to provide an additional opportunity for employers to view your work.
• Relevancy. The goal for your résumé writing is to list the most relevant experiences to your career of interest as soon as possible. Don’t have relevant work experiences? No problem — you can just list out your course projects as “Relevant Projects” and your work experience as “Additional” or “Other” experience. You can also list relevant academic coursework as another way to demonstrate you’re learning about a particular area of expertise.
• Consistency. There are no clear-cut rules about how to handle different aspects of your résumé (e.g., listing company vs. job title first in your experience section), but the most important thing to keep in mind is to remain consistent throughout the document. This tip also applies to using bold headers, maintaining similar font styles and sizes, dates, and using punctuation.
• Detail. This tip relates to how you describe your work experiences. When developing bullet points you want to be as detailed about what you’ve accomplished as possible, while making sure to share results. You want to also be detailed about the skill sets you used for your accomplishments, focusing on those that closely match the requirements of the position.
• Length. For most students and recent graduates, a one-page résumé should be more than enough to list your experiences, but if there is more that needs to be covered it can go to a **full** two pages. What is meant by a full two pages is that there shouldn’t be any excessive white space at the bottom of the page. There are exceptions to this rule, such as government résumés and CVs. One way that you can save space and keep your document to one page is by grouping your skills section into subcategories.