PHOTO COURTESY RONNIE GARCIA
The UTRGV Career Center and the Vackar Office of Involvement and Center for Engagement Office will kick off the semester by hosting Runway to Success: Career Ready, a fashion show designed to help students navigate professional attire.
The event will take place from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. today in PlainsCapital Bank El Gran Salón on the Brownsville campus and from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the PlainsCapital Bank Theater on the Edinburg campus.
The runway will feature student models from various majors and student organizations across both campuses, according to the event calendar.
Tony Leandro, assistant director of career education at the Career Center, said the main purpose of the event is to promote the importance of dressing for success.
“We want to be able to promote our resource, which is our Career Closet, which is readily available for all undergrad students to be able to come in,” Leandro said.
Noe Mireles, a criminal justice sophomore, said he has never heard about the Career Closet.
“I think [the event] would be very beneficial,” Mireles said. “Especially for people down here who might not know what to wear.”
Leandro added students on the Edinburg campus can visit Student Academic Center Room 2.101 to see what items are available, while students on the Brownsville campus can schedule an appointment to view available clothing, with staff delivering selected items to the office at Interdisciplinary Academic Building Room 1.105.
“They’re able to rent suits or there are some items that have been donated by the community that are for keeps,” he said.
The assistant director added the Career Center will have industry experts and staff from the center during the event to provide insight on items shown at the runway.
“I know there’s always some confusion with, like, what’s business casual, what’s business professional, what’s casual and what’s too casual,” he said.
Mireles added this is important for students such as freshmen.
“It would be very good to open their eyes, the change from high school to college,” he said.
Jerome Wiggins, career adviser for the Robert C. Vacker College of Business and Entrepreneurship, said it is important for students to know how to dress because employers expect it.
“We survey our employers after the Career Internship Expo that we have every semester and we find out what are the biggest talking points or the biggest areas of improvement,” Wiggins said. “Last semester, it was the way our students represented themselves, including the way they dressed.”
He said students can visit the VOICE Office when they need help to support their career initiatives.
Wiggins added the event is to target business students by highlighting that business-related skills apply across every industry.
“We figured this was a good target audience to kind of address this and hopefully we’ll have other students from other colleges as well, kind of, come,” he said.
The career adviser said it is better to overdress than underdress.
“You definitely want to be prepared for the occasion,” he said.
Regina Guajardo, an English junior, said she does not know what is appropriate or not to wear for an interview.
“I definitely think [the event] is a fun and educational way for students to know what to expect in their career,” Guajardo said.
Wiggins added he wants students to familiarize themselves in what they wear.
“We just want to be able to socialize with students,” he said. “I think sometimes students don’t really know good color combinations or how to wear a suit correctly, and this can help socialize and inform that.”
Guajardo said the event makes it easier for students to access information about professional attire.
“I think an event like this in school can definitely help us in the long run of what to expect and what to wear,” she said.
PHOTO COURTESY RONNIE GARCIA
