Local professionals give advice at roundtable

On Tuesday, May 4 at 7 pm the Aspiring Professionals of America (APA) sponsored a Professional Round Table. The organization brought in 13 various professionals from around the Storm Lake area. This gave college students a chance to talk with professionals in various fields and ask them questions.

The sponsoring organization worked very hard to cover a wide variety of professions at this roundtable event. The fields that were represented Tuesday night included communication, medicine, marketing, law and entrepreneurship. Each student had eight to ten minutes to talk to the professionals. When their time was up with one professional, they rotated to spend time with another.

APA is a new organization to Buena Vista University. It was founded by senior Entrepreneurship and Spanish major Adrienne Haynes.
APA gives BVU students the opportunity to work with Storm Lake High School students and promote professional career option exploration. They have also begun to expand their network and include Buena Vista students in this wonderful opportunity.

According to their mission statement, APA was created “to give students opportunities to take an in-depth look into career choices by networking with professionals in the field. In addition, participants are encouraged to research careers or professions that they are unfamiliar with to get a better sense of which career paths would best suit them.”

At the roundtable discussion, even if a particular major or interest was not covered, there was valuable information that everybody could gain from attending this event. The personnel were very eager to answer questions and give the students advice or knowledge that they have learned throughout the years. Each student walked away with some valuable information at the end of this event.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time and walked out that night with a smile on their face. Many people, including both students and the professionals, addressed Haynes at the end of the night and thanked her for such an amazing event and an incredible opportunity that she and APA had provided for the campus.

“I was very satisfied with the amount of people who turned out. I had my fingers crossed for standing room only, but my goal was simply to have more students than professionals and I was happy to see most of the chairs filled,” Haynes said.

APA is a wonderful opportunity to start building your network and gain valuable experience. If you would like to get involved with APA you can email Haynes or the Administrative Assistant, first-year Kimberly Perez. They would be happy to share more information about APA with everyone who is interested.