After nine weeks of classes, some students seized the opportunity to relax over fall break while others participated in service trips, travelled to cities for career treks and attended professional conferences.
Junior Erin May traveled to New York City on a career trek sponsored by the film, television and theatre department and the sports media and culture minor. Seventeen students and representatives from the career center spent three days visiting companies and corporations such as the NFL, NBA and WWE.
The film, television and theatre major also hosts a career trek to Los Angeles that runs concurrently with the New York trip.
On Tuesday night, May’s group went to dinner with Sarah Boyle and Kasey Choma, two Notre Dame alumni who work at NBC in sports marketing. On Wednesday, students visited Oak View Group, a company that owns arenas in various parts of the country.
“We met the CEO and a couple of young employees, which is really exciting,” May said.
The group travelled to the NFL headquarters, where they met Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL.
“I’m a huge Eagles fan, and I got to see the Super Bowl ring, and since they just won the Super Bowl, that was super cool to see,” said May.
The group spoke with several Notre Dame alumni, including Brent Lawton and Kaitlin Prestegaard, who work in sectors such as development and global partnership.
Students visited the NBA headquarters and received a full tour of the office and met with more alumni, including Tim Frank, the senior vice president of league operations and communications.
The Notre Dame Club of New York hosted the trek group at a pub on Wednesday night for more networking with people involved in sports. May said that she “talked to a woman in social media at the NFL. And I actually talked to someone who I grew up going to camp with, and she works for the U.S. Open for the [United States Golf Association].”
To conclude the trek, students traveled to Stamford, Connecticut, to visit IMG headquarters. IMG owns WWE and Major League Soccer production.
“Thursday was more production-based, which is more of what I’m into. So that was super cool to see their social media and their graphics, and they basically do all their broadcasts in-house for a lot of that stuff,” May said. “Everyone was very generous. We got an entire tour. The facility was a brand new building as well.”
According to May, the treks are helpful because students can develop relationships with alumni.
“You’re sitting in a room with [Notre Dame alumni] and getting to talk face-to-face with them, and then you can get their numbers and follow up with them. It’s really helpful to get your foot in the door,” May said.
Out west, junior Izzy Molnar participated in a one-day northern California Tech Trek, where she and nine other students visited companies such as Google, PayPal, Intuit and Cadence Design Systems. Notre Dame alumni hosted the students, gave tours of the corporate campuses and shared advice along with their own personal backgrounds and experiences.
“It was really interesting, and I got good tips for applying for jobs. It was really educational, and it was nice to be able to meet people from the company and have a long conversation and see the campuses. It was definitely beneficial,” Molnar said.
According to Molnar, the trek was beneficial for students to get advice from experienced people in the tech workforce.
“I’ve been stressing a lot about cover letters, and the recruiters said, ‘That doesn’t really matter. Don’t stress about the cover letters.’ It was also nice to get connections. I was able to connect with a lot of people on LinkedIn who went to Notre Dame,” Molnar said.
The students also received merchandise from the companies, such as branded water bottles and cookies with the PayPal logo. Students were able to explore amenities at the various campuses, such as Google’s snack cabinet with novel canned Hint waters.
Junior Brigid Ryan spent her fall break differently as she participated in a week-long service trip to Appalachia with nine other Notre Dame students. She worked on Bethlehem Farm in Alderson, West Virginia. Students in the Institute for Social Concerns’ Appalachia course were divided among different sites in the region and drove with their groups to their homes for the week.
Bethlehem Farm is a Catholic, community-driven farm focused on self-sustainability, faith and service, according to the farm.
“When we arrived on Sunday night, we were immediately welcomed with smiles and hugs from the caretakers there after our long drive from campus,” Ryan wrote in a statement to The Observer.
On the farm, Ryan and her group mates cooked meals, harvested sweet potatoes and prepared garlic beds. They also worked on infrastructure, fixing windows and repairing roofs.
“These acts of service were fulfilling both physically, as we worked hard … and spiritually, as we got to know the community members the farm serves and how the farm sustains itself in order to appreciate God’s Creation in everything,” Ryan wrote.
Additionally, participants spent a lot of time outdoors, including stargazing.
“We faced the cold in the mornings and nights on the Farm property, enjoying the beauty of the region,” Ryan wrote.
The group prayed together multiple times each day, “including first thing in the morning, before meals, as we left for work sites, and in the evening,” Ryan wrote.
South of the Appalachia service trips, the Society of Women Engineers traveled to New Orleans to attend a national conference for women engineers. The conference was an “opportunity to learn, network and explore opportunities in engineering,” vice president Maggie Howard said.
The event took place last Thursday and Friday and featured keynote speakers in the morning, panels and talks by female engineers surrounding technical subjects and career advice. Howard attended talks about giving effective presentations and quantum entanglement.
The society brought 40 Notre Dame students to the event, where they stayed in the French Quarter and had the opportunity to explore the city following the days’ activities.
“Lots of girls got group dinners at oyster bars, seafood boils, creole restaurants, etc., and then everyone was able to try beignets from Cafe Du Monde,” Howard said.
Howard found the conference inspiring, as it allowed University students to see a “thriving community” of women professionals.
The SWE conference “allow[ed] women to connect and be reminded that they do belong in technical fields. I would definitely recommend the trip for anyone who wants to find an internship or full-time position … and for any woman who wants to feel inspired by seeing that there’s a community in engineering designed for them,” Howard said.
