CCI holds weekly drop-in hours: ‘We’re your people’

ABBIE SMITH Staff Writer

Every Wednesday, the College of Communication and Information’s Career Development Center holds drop-in hours from 1-3 p.m. These drop-in hours were first held in Fall 2022, and are currently active for the spring semester. As of Feb. 1. Bukky Abdul, career coach in CCI and Devan Lane, director of career development, are the main people to work with during this time and they hope to spread the word about this opportunity for students.

“Tell your friends,” Abdul said. “We want CCI students to use our resources so that they can succeed.”

These drop-in hours are for CCI students specifically, while there is a separate set of drop-in hours for the university-wide Center for Career Development & Academic Exploration. Faculty members who participate in the program believe that CCI drop-in hours have been underutilized in the past semester. Lane stated that six students in total came to dropin hours last fall.

However, things are looking up. Lane also stated that two or three students came to drop-in hours last week alone and she hopes for it to increase steadily from there.

One of the things that Lane wants students to take advantage of is the resume-building assistance that is offered during drop-in hours.

“If you haven’t had somebody look at your resume, it pays to do that. You should take advantage of it — get some feedback, get prac- tice talking about your resume,” Lane said. “I would really love to see more resumes, honestly, because there are some that are posted on Handshake and you’re like, ‘oh.’”

With a trained professional ready to look over your resume, it’s definitely worth the time to take advantage of their knowledge.

Other than resume-building, these drop-in hours offer chances to practice interviewing for jobs, negotiating salaries and building professional skills.

“I worked with a student a couple of weeks ago who had accepted a couple of different job offers and was deciding which one he should take,” Lane said. “If it’s career related, we’re here to help with that. We’re your people.”

CCI will also post an event on Thursday, Feb. 16, titled: “Build Your Online Portfolio with Wix.” It is a virtual event that will last one hour.

“It’s so important to build a portfolio, especially if you’re a JEM student,” Lane continued. “Every person who attends this event will get a free Wix account.”

The following day, Friday Feb. 17, CCI will also be holding a brand new program: CCI by Design. At the event, CCI will host about twenty industry partners from companies such as WBIR, WATE and Tombras who will share their experiences in the industry in which they work as well as teach about opportunities for students within the industry.

If you have a class at the time of the drop-in hours or cannot make it for any other reason, both Devan Lane and Bukky Abdul are open to scheduling appointments with students at dlane20@utk.edu and babdul@utk.edu, respectively.