SUNY Oswego hosted a career connector networking event on Oct. 27 as part of the 2021 Dr. Lewis B. O’Donnell Media Summit in the Tyler Hall lobby.

The event featured six career connectors, who are recent SUNY Oswego alumni within the past 10 years, and now work in the media industry. Gab Candela is the career connectors coordinator for the event and said that having graduates from the past few years allows them to give better advice to students. 

“A lot of them are recent graduates, like a couple years out, which I think is really good because they can relate more to being a college student as it wasn’t that long ago,” Candela said. “They are really involved in Oswego and in their careers so I think we are getting the best of both worlds and students are really taking advantage of it.”

After the Media Summit panel students were able to ask questions and network with the connectors from 4:30 to 6 p.m. They also offered advice from their time at SUNY Oswego and on how to get jobs in the media field.

Kalie Dobrow, class of 2016, is a senior social media strategist and said her advice to students is to be open to change and to be adaptive because, in her career, you are at the mercy of updates from social media companies. She also said that the media industry is constantly evolving, as her job did not even exist when she graduated. 

Another career connector Matt Stone, class of 2015, agreed and also said students should keep in mind their personal lives when planning out their career.

“Life moves quick,” Stone said. “Two or three years ago I was very focused on work but then personal life plays such a big factor as you grow your career. I didn’t even think about that at the beginning and now I’m getting married next year, it’s totally different … Your personal life and personal relationships end up playing a factor in your career.”

Stone is a segment producer for Good Morning America and focuses on finding and booking guests for interviews. He also said that the field is constantly changing, partially because of COVID-19 and how it impacts in-person work.

“Staffing has decreased a little bit, departments have gotten smaller, responsibilities have grown on my end from where I started,” Stone said. “It was always a 24/7 job and that hasn’t changed but how I do work, being able to do it from my apartment instead of the office has a big difference.”

Even though Stone said his team has downsized over the past few years, that does not mean jobs are also decreasing.

“The opportunities right now are continuing to grow,” Stone said. “We used to be just a couple of ABC shows and now there is ABC News Lives which is 24/7 and you can get news anytime. Under the Disney branch there’s Hulu that has news coverage, you have YouTube channels, I think that continuing to report and to create is very important.”

Travis Clark, class of 2015, works for Insider as a senior media reporter and also said that the popularity of streaming services has changed the media industry and will continue to do so.

“The rise of streaming services is completely different,” Clark said. “When I started it was mostly just Netflix, Prime Video and Hulu … every giant media corporation has a streaming service now.”

Clark also agreed with Stone that now is the best time to be a senior graduating because there is an influx of opportunities in media.

“It’s a great time to apply for jobs, there are a lot of jobs open,” Clark said. “It is a really fascinating time to be in media or to cover media because of how quickly things are changing with new technologies being introduced, it’s just an exciting time.”

Career connectors also reflected on their time at SUNY Oswego and what experiences helped them the most. 

Geselle Martinez, class of 2017, is a stage manager for CBS Good Morning America and is “eyes, ears and voice of the director in the control room.” She said working with student media showed her what part of media and entertainment she wanted to pursue after college.

“The reason I came to Oswego and what I was inspired by was WTOP,” Martinez said. “I thought I wanted to anchor and on-air talent and it turned out that while at Oswego I decided that’s not what I wanted to do. Oswego helped open my eyes to that and directed me to maybe I want to be a director instead and where I am now [working at CBS]  will help me to get to that point.”

Martinez also worked on the Media Summit and said it was her favorite part of her college years because it helped her gain confidence and meet new people.

“The Media Summit was something I was a part of in 2017 and it was such a great experience,” Martinez said. “It was very eye opening, it built a lot of character for me and I did a lot of networking. One of the career connectors [that year] … is the art director for CBS This Morning and I work there now, so he actually emailed me a couple weeks ago … and said ‘I saw your name for the Media Summit, congratulations!’ How crazy is it that four years ago he was walking these classrooms telling me not to be nervous and here I am coming back.”

After the Media Summit students were given the chance to sign up for information about working next year’s event, which includes being ambassadors for career connectors. For more information about this year’s Summit or to get involved, students can visit the Media Summit website or email this year’s event director Abby Czerwonka at aczerwon@osewgo.edu.

William Rogers | The Oswegonian