The Faculty of Information and Media Studies career conference, ‘The Real World’, brought successful Western Alumni back to London Hall to offer career advice to the (FIMS) graduating class of 2019. The night began with the keynote speaker Angie Campaneli who completed her degree at Western in the Media, Information and Technoculture program in 2003 and has since gained an impressive resume.
FIMS Alumni
Working in the entertainment world, she has interviewed a variety of stars and has walked many red carpets. She stressed to students the importance of excelling at a job, even if it’s a seemingly small task.
The students were then divided into groups and listened to speeches from their chosen alumnus. One of these alumni was Ryan Louis.
Ryan Louis was a FIMS graduate who now works for VICE as a project manager. He detailed to students his journey from being a student at Western to his current career path and encouraged students to market themselves as best as possible to potential future bosses.
Tyler Buist is a digital producer for CBC news, he graduated from the Media and the Public Interest program and later the Masters of Journalism at Western. He loved the chance to get to speak with students.
“It was a lot of fun. It was great to meet students who are graduating from the program, to see what they are looking to do after school and to give them advice and to talk to them about their options and it’s great to see all these kids with hope to what they’ll do next and thinking about what those steps they need to take them are. ”
MPI student Thomas Sayers says that the conference was a good opportunity to see where the program can take him.
“It was pretty cool to get a sense of what people in our program have come from and where they have gone. As someone who’s still in the program right now, I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can do with my degree and how our FIMS education has shaped what people can do.”
Devin Golets is the FIMS Career Services Officer, he says that the conference was good for students who haven’t chosen their career path yet.
The conference was also an effort to reinforce the importance of getting to know people in the industry, that may later be an important career contact.
