BATON ROUGE — The Shaquille O’Neal CHAMPS/ Life Skills program hosted its annual Career Symposium for LSU junior and senior student-athletes Monday night in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The event featured 27 representatives from various corporations and organizations across the Baton Rouge Area.
Student-athletes had the opportunity to network with representatives from each company, as well as participate in a question and answer session with each representative in a panel discussion format.
“As student-athletes, our time is very limited between our studies and our sport, so it’s difficult to do what normal students get to do in terms of networking and interviewing and things like that,” senior gymnast Summer Hubbard said. “This event gives us an opportunity to gain more knowledge about what to expect when looking for a job, which is really an invaluable opportunity for us.”
Distinguished speakers included LSU alumnus Mark Grant, television director for CBS Sports and Dr. Shirley White, founder of Success Images. Grant spoke on the importance of making an impression in an interview and offered a list of do’s and don’ts during the job-seeking process.
Dr. White presented a two-part seminar on proper business etiquette and dressing for success. To help demonstrate her presentation on dressing appropriately for an interview, Dr. White invited several student-athletes to model appropriate and inappropriate dress. Modeling appropriate attire were football players Orlando Gunn and Drake Nevis, along with swimmer Shanna Spears and cross country and track runner Laura Carleton. Gymnast Susan Jackson and soccer player Courtney Alexander, along with swimmer Laust Helmig and football player Delvin Breaux modeled inappropriate interview attire.
“It really means a lot to have something like this event available to us,” junior wide receiver Terrence Toliver said. “We don’t get many opportunities to speak with different job representatives, so it means a lot to get the knowledge we need to do something outside of just our sports. I really learned a lot tonight too with the discussions and guest speakers.”
The event is another way the CHAMPS/Life Skills Program at LSU helps student-athletes prepare for the challenges of life beyond the playing field.