From backpacks to briefcases
What’s the best reaction when a fork crashes to the floor during a formal business dinner? Can student debt be paid off while saving for the future? What makes for a professional wardrobe?
Students can find the answers to these questions – and many more – thanks to Concordia’s Backpack to Briefcase series, offered through the Advancement and Alumni Relations office and sponsored, in part, by the Concordia University Alumni Association.
Rose Wangechi, the alumni officer responsible for student programs, launched the series four years ago. Two series of workshops are offered annually: one in fall and one in winter.
“The goal is to provide the soft skills to complement the academic knowledge students are getting in their courses,” says Wangechi.
Students obviously appreciate it, with most seminars attracting an average of about 70 participants. “It’s one of our more successful programs,” Wangechi notes.
The winter 2011 series, kicking off March 9, features four workshops designed to help students transition from a life of roommates and ramen noodles to one of briefcases and Bollinger.
First up is a workshop called How to Succeed in Business, tailored for business students or those who want to work in a large company. It’s a new workshop, as is the one on debt management scheduled for March 22.
Wangechi says she strives to introduce at least one new subject area in each series. For ideas she takes direction from student feedback surveys and focus groups.
Perennially popular Backpack to Briefcase workshop topics include dressing for success, stress management and presentation skills. There is also Business Dining Etiquette, from which students learn the valuable, if sometimes underappreciated, skills of conducting business when food is involved.
Arlene Bradley is the director of Pro-Etiquette, an etiquette and protocol consulting company, and she’s been leading these workshops for Concordia students twice a year since the series began.
“At the beginning, I was surprised how keen students were. They seemed to really get it,” she says, noting that students seem to understand that a large number of business deals – and an increasing number of job interviews – are conducted over the dinner table. They come away with real, concrete tips about the right way to dine that they can put to use immediately.
Bradley enjoys working with students: “They’re fantastic – they keep me going for three hours and they come up with questions I can’t even imagine.”
(Pssst – the answer to the dropped fork question? Quietly signal the wait staff to bring another; don’t try to retrieve it. For the answers to the other questions, students will just have to sign up.)
Related links:
• Backpack to Briefcase
• Concordia Advancement and Alumni Relations
• Pro-Etiquette