By Catherine Carlozzi and Nancy Megan

The NYWICI Foundation’s annual Student Career Conference has been described as "a day filled with possibilities."  It’s a day when the Foundation realizes a key element of its mission: “to help a younger sisterhood successfully enter the world of communications with our financial support, professional guidance and ongoing friendship.”  For NYWICI, it’s a day “to nurture future leaders in communications.”  

By all accounts, the 2006 conference, held at New York City’s Grand Hyatt hotel on Saturday, November 11, was the most successful in the event’s history in terms of both attendance and program breadth.

Possibility was there in abundance in the form of a highly diverse group of some 340 college students, impressive in their eagerness and confidence.  They came on their own in small groups or in school-organized delegations as large as 30 from colleges and universities in nine states and the District of Columbia. “Promising professionals of tomorrow” was how Howard University student Denise Horn, herself one of them and a recipient of a NYWICI Foundation scholarship in 2005, described them in her luncheon address. 

The morning began with a welcome from NYWICI President Betsy Morgan, senior VP of CBS Digital Media, during which she initiated a thought that threaded through the proceedings: 

“Throughout the day, you will be hearing from prominent, senior women in the communications industry who have busy, high-powered jobs – most at the leading media organizations of the world.  You cannot get access like this anywhere but through NYWICI. These women are here to share first-hand some very personal accounts of what it really takes to get to the top in this business. We believe your communications career starts HERE today, and NYWICI will support you every step of the way.” 

This thought was echoed in the luncheon remarks by Lifetime Television executive Barbara Brennan, former president of NYWICI and a long-time Foundation board member. Describing the purpose of the conference, she said, “We match possibility with opportunity.”   

The conference’s information-packed agenda – featuring a variety of interactive formats – offered opportunity in abundance.  Over the course of an eight-hour program featuring more than 40 top practitioners in various fields of communications, students had the opportunity to

• Gain insight into the current state of digital and traditional media, including film, newspapers, magazines, and television

• Develop a deeper understanding of disciplines such as advertising, public relations, and marketing and how they work together in a communications program

• Learn first-hand about specific professions, such as newspaper and broadcast journalism, from both the big-picture and day-to-day perspectives

• Hear how top communicators built their careers – including keynoters Bonnie Fuller of American Media and Hoda Kotb of NBC – and the lessons to be learned from their successes and failures

• Get expert advice on how to prepare for and enter a career in their chosen fields, including specific job-seeking advice and intelligence about available internships and jobs

• Interact with peers, presenters, and senior members of NYWICI and the NYWICI Foundation board, honing networking skills and adding valuable contacts to their networks

At the end of each session, attendees formed lines and patiently waited for one-on-one time with the panelists or speakers, who handed out business cards, advice, and information about internships and other opportunities, while answering questions and accepting resumés.

At the close of the day G.S. Schwartz Managing Director Joan Cear, VP of the Student Affairs Committee – which organizes and hosts the conference – told the assembled attendees, “We help open doors for you, but you have to go through them.”  The majority of attendees were doing just that.