Guest Blog, Career Center

Ball State Career Center Smashes Records With Year’s First Indiana Connection Lounge Experience 

Ball State University’s Career Center has done it again! In the second week of the year, the Indiana Connection Lounge Experience hosted representatives from TechPoint and Ascend for a one-of-a-kind, all-campus extravaganza. 

TechPoint and Ascend are two of Indiana’s most celebrated industry advocates. TechPoint represents innovation and technology industries, while Ascend Indiana works with employers and universities to build and expand Indiana’s talent pipelines. Together they’re sort of a power couple, and we were thrilled to host. 

The day began with introductions and a pep talk at the Indiana Connection Lounge as our guests met their Career Center guides. We then quickly separated into groups and fanned out across the campus to explore!  

Throughout the morning and the early afternoon, Ascend and TechPoint representatives were introduced to nearly two dozen classrooms, toured unique Ball State facilities like the Esports and Digital Corps offices, and participated in exclusive networking opportunities with Ball State faculty and staff. At each stop full of students, TechPoint representatives were eager to explain their Xtern program – a unique immersive opportunity for tech-minded individuals! For everyone else: Ascend was able to promote their job-matching programs and career coaching services. Finally, we came back together for open networking at the Indiana Connection Lounge. 

The Indiana Connection Lounge open networking event is the highlight of the day, and never fails to be an impactful occasion! This time, the ICL soared past expectations and smashed all records, hosting over a hundred students plus faculty and staff. The crowd overflowed into the hallway, we ran out of pizza and ran to get more, and the room was still full at the closing! Overall, we tracked 6,403 campaign impressions and 1200 in-person student connections.

As great as it was: this was just the first of many. The Career Center team will be introducing half a dozen new partners to the Indiana Connection Lounge Experience this year. Don’t miss out on these awesome opportunities! Email Robert Tucker (robert.tucker@bsu.edu) to connect with our Employer Relations team and to subscribe to our newsletter.