The Career Development Center (CDC) is offering a variety of upcoming field trips for students who are thinking about future career paths and the current job market. The CDC offers students a supportive network of alumni and an office on campus that helps to facilitate connections and exposure.

The first trip this semester is the Finance Field Trip and Finance Fair in New York on Oct. 6. Students will visit Joseph Gunnar & Co., LLC, a full service broker-dealer that offers a variety of investment products to investors. Afterwards, there will be an educational panel at UBS and a fair that will give students the opportunity to network with various employers in the financial services industry.

“This field trip is not open to upperclassmen because in this case, the employers want to see students for internship opportunities not necessarily entry-level positions,” Melissa Gutkowski, senior assistant director at the CDC, said.

The Social Media Alumni Panel field trip and CNN site visit on Oct. 7 will also take place in New York. Students will first visit CNN for a tour and then attend an alumni panel titled “Utilizing Social Media to Maximize the Power of Your Marketing and Content Strategies.” A networking reception with University alumni will follow.

A field trip to the Boston Area to visit EMC and Eneroc will be held on Oct. 13. Following these visits will be a networking dinner. On Oct. 21, there will be a Sustainability Trip to both Philadelphia and Hershey, Penn. to visit Tastykake, the largest green bakery in the United States, with a visit to their Corporate and Social Responsibility Department.

Rounding out this semester’s field trips is a Samsung Site Visit and Interview Workshop and Practice session. This session is being held by alumna Janet Walsh, CEO of Birchtree Global, LLC. Interview practice is being held by both University and non-University professionals in various industries.

About two years ago, the CDC started offering field trips for University students in order to give them a taste of different industries and company environments.

“The Field Trip Program is one of the experiences through the Bucknell Professional Networks of the CDC which, as a whole, provides professional and networking opportunities to learn about industries and career fields. The purpose of the program was to try to give students face-to-face time with employers and learn more about company culture,” Gutkowski said.

The CDC has created different “professional networks” that students may join. Students can sign up for as many networks as they would like and get the opportunity to sign up first for many of the field trips.

“Students obtain a wide variety of skills while at Bucknell from their academics and extracurriculars. Field trips show students how these skills translate into a job or industry,” Gutkowski said.

This semester’s assortment of field trips does not provide an opportunity for every network.

“A lot of industries have crossovers, so while there isn’t a field trip that directly relates to each network each semester, there is always some sort of connection. Overall, these field trips are leading to stronger employer connections with these companies,” Gutkowski said.