Choate students converse and dine with Mr. David Desjardins ’02 at brunch in Lanphier Center Commons.
John Coughlan ’87 speaks on his career in finance.
By Arjun Pathy ’25
A hallmark of the Choate experience is the vast alumni network that comes with it. On Sunday, October 1, 16 alumni working in fields ranging from media and television to finance and investment visited Choate as part of the School’s first in-person career fair since 2015. The event, open to fifth- and sixth-formers, was a joint effort between the Alumni Relations Office and student leaders. Through two 45-minute, career-specific sessions and a brunch, the fair provided students with a unique opportunity to network with alumni and gain exposure to a wide range of professions.
Julen Payne ’24 and Junho Lee ’24 came up with the idea of a career fair nearly a year ago with hopes to utilize Choate’s extensive alumni network to students’ advantage. After a summer of planning, the Alumni Relations Office, Payne, and Lee assembled a list of over a dozen professionals to attend the event. Beyond finding speakers, the planning group also grappled with a slew of logistical complexities, such as coordinating with food catering services and scheduling sessions.
Dean of Students, and former Associate for Alumni Engagement, Mr. Will Gilyard ’98 worked closely with Nexus, a career networking platform, to organize the event. Months of planning, starting from the event’s early stages, culminated in a morning of connection and conversation between students and alumni. “It felt very personalized and very one-on-one,” attendee Sundari von Wentzel ’25 said.
The event started with a casual gathering in the Lanphier Center lobby, where students introduced themselves to alumni over cups of coffee. Then, once everyone was checked in, students headed to the two 45-minute information sessions featuring alumni from the professional industries they expressed interest in prior to the event. The fields of interest included business development, communications, finance and investment, government, law, medicine, technology, and television and film. In each session, alumni shared about their time at Choate, their professional experiences, and valuable life skills they acquired during their time in the workforce.
After their presentations, alumni opened up the session to questions from students looking to gain insight into their future career paths.
Sebastian Plunkett ’24, an Advanced Robotics Concentration student at Choate, enjoyed hearing from Ms. Sarah McKenna ’89, the CEO of Sequentum, a technology company specializing in web-based data.
“We discussed her background and her journey reaching her position now and how she feels about tech,” he said. “It was very exciting meeting with her and asking questions. I asked her about quality control for programming and training sets for data.”
After attending the two sessions, students returned to the Lanphier Center Commons, where a full brunch was held for all event attendees. This casual setting allowed students to dive deeper into more personal conversations with alumni at small tables.
For some students, this portion of the event was the most valuable. In conversation with Mr. David Desjardins ’02, Senior Caucus Counsel at Connecticut House Democrats who led a session on Government and Law, von Wentzel said, “It felt like a natural conversation to me … it was interesting to compare and contrast and talk about [politics] on the state level.”
Mr. Desjardins appreciated how the career fair was a chance for students to explore possible career paths. “It’s great that you’re thinking about [your career] now, and you don’t have to have it figured out at all,” he said.
The event connected 16 alumni and around 120 students. “People showed up, and they were ready to learn, and they were interested,” Payne said. “And that’s really what we wanted.”
Reflecting on the event, Mr. Gilyard had only positive things to say about attendees’ experiences. “Everyone looked sharp…they got business cards [and their] questions answered,” he said. Von Wentzel added, “I think getting teenagers to sit in a room and be still and be quiet for an hour is kind of a challenge, and so, it felt less like a class and more like a conversation.”
Lee and Payne hope to plan more workshops about resume writing, using LinkedIn, and interviewing skills. “We want it to be something that when we get called back for our reunion, it’s still in action. Maybe [it’s] something Junho and I can talk at in the future,” Payne said.
