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One of the most intense and challenging struggles that a university student faces is finding a job in the fierce and competitive professional world. As students, we fear that last class of our university career, knowing that the real world holds no resemblance to our comfortable student life. In response to the great cries of graduating students, the Trent Business Students Association organized the first annual Trent University Career Fair. The fair took place on March 12, 2001 at the Holiday Inn on George Street bringing twelve major organizations to recruit Trent students for a variety of professions.

Students from the Business Students Asociation seized the opportunity to promote the Trent Mastercard during the Career Fair.

The Trent Business Students Association worked closely with departments in the university such as Alumni, Careers and Counseling and Student Affairs. These departments provided both financial and professional support for the students organizing such a large and important event. Four students headed the organization of the event, they were supported by 12 volunteers who assisted the day of the fair in such areas as reception, greeting, and clean up. The entire event took six months to plan, but was well worth the effort. The companies that attended it provided glowing reviews of both the students running the event and those attending it for job search reasons.

The Trent Business Students Association managed to develop professional liaisons with companies such as Investors Group, London Life, Lakefield Research, and Certified Management Accountants. Many of the companies expressed great interest in creating a long-standing relationship with both the student run organization and the university as a whole. All twelve companies insisted that they wished to return to the event the following year.

Next year the Trent Business Students Association has made plans to hold the event on campus in the Great Hall, during the month of November. This venue provides room for twice the number of companies and will improve the student traffic. Preparations for next year's career fair have already begun, including the list of invited companies.

The Trent Business Students Association is a board of students who govern the social and extracurricular lives of the business students. The career fair, although the largest event, is only one of many events organized by the TBSA. The TBSA was founded in 1998 and has grown exponentially in the past 3 years. It has facilitated the attendance of Trent's Business program at such major conferences as Undergraduate Business Games (the largest competition of business students in Canada) and Roundtable (a professional meeting of the most influential business students in all of Canada). The TBSA consists of a president, vice-president, board of directors, and a series of student representatives.

The contacts for next year's career fair are David McKee (President of TBSA) and Liban Essa (Vice President of TBSA).

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