I am really bad at talking to people. So networking events and career fairs are like my personal armageddon. As you can guess I ended up attending a career fair this week as part of my never ending search for a summer internship (I have spent too many nights obsessing over the correct usage of a comma on my cover letters).

I arrived at the SUB which was where the fair was happening, checked in, and wandered around for ten minutes trying to work up the courage to talk to a recruiter. I found it very intimidating and was very nervous. I actually spent a lot of time talking to my fellow classmates in the beginning and learned some new names.

Finally, with the encouragement of a friend I walked up to the Amazon table. The conversation with the recruiter went really well and was very interesting. I was like ‘yeah, this is going so well’. And, maybe it was because the room was hot and there were photography lights flashing to my left and I was nervous or I don’t even know that caused me to faint. Yep, I fainted. In front of many people. People i may want to work for/with. It was MORTIFYING. I will cringe about this experience 50 years from now. I am still cringing about it even as I type these words.

Everyone was really nice and concerned. All the fainting stories I was told made me feel a little better. And I was able to joke that I was so excited about Amazon that I fainted. After assuring everyone that i was fine and indeed was not  a fainting sheep in disguise I quickly made my rounds at other tables and left.

My first career fair definitely was not boring. Though I lost some dignity, I gained a lot of experience about how to talk to professionals about my interests and the career I want. the fair was worth it.