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Majors and minors fair goes on in virtual format

Last Monday, the majors and minors fair took place via Zoom. Students were encouraged to use this networking opportunity to connect with faculty, alumni and current students and receive more information about the majors and minors offered at Bradley.

A little over 250 students registered for the online event, which is about a hundred less than the number of students who registered for the fair in previous years according to Susan Rapp, associate director of the Academic Success Center.

“I thought we might have had more participation from students just because it is easier to log in to Zoom and attend a fair than walk across campus to get to a physical location,” Rapp said.

Students were required to register in advance and given a Google Sheet that contained the list of Zoom links to get information on each major and minor. Professors facilitated discussions individually with students while sharing a slideshow with more information in the background.

Each Zoom session had a waiting room where students could either choose to stay and wait for the next session or go to another link to learn about a different major before coming back.

“It’s harder to do this when you can’t see how many people are waiting in front of you and you just have to stare at a blank screen, but some professors admitted students in to let them know that they will meet them in a few minutes,” Rapp said.

The only department that was not present at the fair was nursing, as internal transfers cannot be as easily done in the nursing department as in the others. However, the nursing department’s contact information was provided to the students if they had questions about the program.

Teresa Barden, a junior psychology major, attended the in-person majors and minors fair held in 2019.

“The in-person setup worked really well,” Barden said. “The reps were really willing to talk to you and I think that was the best part.”

Ethan Lyon, a freshman academic exploration program student, said the event still served him well.

“I think I got a better idea of what each subdivision of management information systems does,” Lyon said. “I am going to try and focus on the management information systems business analytics major and the data science minor, and [the fair] has me really motivated.”

Even though the virtual fair brought in students, the chances of the fair being held virtually again are slim.

“The reason we are all back on campus is to have that in-person experience and I just don’t think you get that if you do the fair online,” Rapp said.

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