Career Quest Helps Chart Future for GW Students

November 18, 2024

Authored by:

Brook Endale

During her junior year at the George Washington University, Paige Thornton, B.A.'18, went on a Career Questtrip to New York City organized by GW's Center for Career Services. She credits that experience with kickstarting her profession in public relations.

In a full-circle moment, Thornton hosted a group of GW undergraduates who are on their own journey of planning for life after graduation with the help of Career Services.

"I do credit Career Quest with really jump-starting my career because it actually did lead to my job," said Thornton, who works for public relations agency RF|Binder. "I have so much pride in being a GW alumna, and it was rewarding to see the next class of GW students come out and express enthusiasm about starting their careers."

The Career Quest trip offers students the opportunity to gain an up-close and personal experience with leading organizations in cities including New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Thornton went on a trip to New York in fall of 2016 during her junior year.

"I had just gone through a whirlwind of switching majors, and I was looking for a way to explore possible career opportunities," Thornton said.

In her first year at GW, Thornton planned to study political science. She briefly considered journalism before switching to marketing in GW Business in her sophomore year.

Thornton said the 2016 Career Quest trip focused on marketing and communications, which aligned well with her interests. The students got a chance to tour the Time Warner building, which was home to CNN and Time Magazine at the time. They also explored Hawkins PR, Google's Chelsea campus and The New York Times.

"I think why Career Quest helped was it drove the inspiration and the real-life examples of what I could do," Thornton said.

After the trip, with the help of the staff at Career Services, she landed an interview with RF|Binder and has worked there since.

When the 2024 cohort of Career Quest students visited her office, she encouraged them to utilize the expertise and connections offered by the staff at Career Services.

"Something that I emphasized with the group who visited us was to leverage the leadership and connections of people they are meeting on the trip and the leaders and career counselors who organized the trip," Thornton said.

Saher Mir, a junior studying journalism with a minor in data science, was one of 15 students who went on the 2024 Career Quest trip over fall break. Mir said she was motivated to apply to the program because she wanted to start planning for her goals after graduation and make industry connections.

"Being a junior, I started stressing needing to connect with people and kind of streamline what I would want to do in the future," Mir said. "So, I felt like Career Quest was a good opportunity because there's still that cushion of it being through GW, and we would meet alumni specifically. I thought that would be like a good pushing-off point to build on networking skills and see different companies."

During the two days they spent in New York, the cohort visited the Federal Reserve Bank, RF|Binder, PRophet and Warner Brothers.

Mir said they had meaningful conversations with the professionals at each company, which helped her understand what working in these fields would be like.

The experience inspired her to think about how her skill sets fit into these industries, and as a data science minor, she was excited to hear that expertise was a relevant and valuable skill at each company they visited.

Another big takeaway from the experience for Mir was gaining practice with her networking skills.

"I think it's definitely given me more confidence in networking or cold emailing people and just making connections," Mir said.

A valuable lesson she learned from speaking to the alumni on the trip was that they didn't necessarily have their career path completely figured out by the time they graduated. Many changed career directions before landing their current jobs.

"I have a pretty good trajectory of where I want my career to go. But I know if it doesn't go that way, I'll still figure it out," Mir said.

GW Career Quest will host its next trip in the fall of 2025. To learn more about the program and how to apply, visit carreerservices.gwu.edu.