First Year Seminar brings community professionals to panel
Texas A&M University-Victoria’s First Year Seminar is helping incoming students prepare for the shift from high school to college, and increasingly, for life after graduation.
This year, students will get a little extra assistance and encouragement from a panel consisting of local professionals, who came to campus to talk about the ins and outs of business and best practices to succeed in everyday life.
The seminar is a required 3-credit hour class which covers practical skills including time management, study habits and professional communication, said Justin Bell, A&M-Victoria First Year Seminar coordinator. It also helps students adjust to new academic expectations and think about their future careers.
“College, or let’s say university life, is fundamentally different than high school,” Bell said. “This is going to prepare students for those differences.”
This year, there are several new features to the First Year Seminar. Now there are more opportunities to bring students into large groups for activities including panels with people from the community, Bell said.
On Friday, Sept. 25, more than 100 students filled Walker Auditorium inside University North to listen to a business-themed panel with representatives from the Victoria community.
Friday’s panel included: Shon Biddle, owner of Amazing Athletes of Golden Crescent; David Plemons, president of David B. Plemons CPS. Inc.; Angela Smith, staff and human resources operator at STP Nuclear Operating Company; Ashley Strevel, City of Victoria director of communications and public affairs; Lindsay Young, A&M-Victoria director of the Small Business Development Center; and Jada Walton, A&M-Victoria director of human resources.
The panels for the day prior on Thursday included: JR Amaya, banking center president at Prosperity Bank; Teri Moten, founder and AI strategist at Your Business Problem Solver; Kyle Scott, president of Lodestone Insurance Agency; and Young. The event also saw more than 100 students in attendance.
Panelists talked with students about the importance of networking, best practices when it comes to being interviewed, how a resume should be presented, workplace expectations and more.
Additionally, the panelists encouraged students to treat volunteer work, campus involvement and leadership roles as valuable preparations for the workforce, even if they have limited formal job experience.
"Get involved. Don't just be a student,” Young said. “Find something to do consistently so you can build experiences that belong on your résumé.”
Qualities employers look for in a candidate will range from reliability, communication skills, work ethic, adaptability and a positive attitude, the panel members said. Community service can also help employers understand a candidate’s character, but students should explain what they did and what skills they gained, rather than simply listing it on a resume, the panel agreed.
"Because students are entering a world where they can have both successes and failures, it's part of our job as educators to help them navigate the world differently than they did in high school,” Bell said. “We want to help them see how to start moving toward being an established professional."
For Ayla Way, a criminal justice freshman from Victoria, the session offered a useful introduction to the job search process.
“I didn’t know some of the things, so it was a learning experience for me,” Way said. “I have a job, but I’ve never had to fill out an application, so it was very helpful.”
A Victoria native, Way said she chose A&M-Victoria in part because of the community her mother described through her own experience. With it being a few weeks now into the fall semester, Way said college was easier than she expected, and she feels appreciative that she is able to reach out to people on campus whenever she needs help.
The transition to college life has also brought a change in responsibility, she said. Unlike high school, where she felt tasks were often handed to her, college requires her to seek out information and seek initiative, an independence that is challenging but welcomed, she said.
Long term, Way plans to complete her bachelor's degree and aim for law school to become a prosecutor, she said.
“I want to be a voice for people who feel like they don’t have one,” Way said.
Texas A&M University-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 50 academic programs in the colleges of Business, Education & Health Professions, Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, and Natural & Applied Science. A&M-Victoria provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as online classes that students can take from anywhere. The university supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.