The 9th Annual AE Career Fair, held September 11, was one of the largest ones to date, attracting more than 300 students and 18 employers to a crowded Georgia Tech Student Center Ballroom for four hours of fast-paced resume-checking, interviewing, and hiring.

This year, the Fair included a Research Expo - a showcase of undergraduate research projects, like the Sustain Alive rocket that took home three top awards at the Third Annual Spaceport America Cup fly-off, held June 18-22 in Las Cruces, New Mexico (see photo, below right).

Sponsored by Sigma Gamma Tau, the aerospace engineering honor society, the 2019 Fair came in the middle of what has become a celebrated tradition at the Daniel Guggenheim School: Career Week. In addition to the Career Fair & Expo, the AE School hosted multiple employer information sessions, private interviews, and informal meetings from Sunday until Thursday night. Students also had the opportunity to attend the Georgia Tech All-Majors Fair.

"I went to the All-Majors Fair and I'm glad I can go to the AE Fair as well," said third-year AE undergrad Tatum Hardy, an Atlanta native.

"Mostly, they [employers] have been interested in the experience I can bring to their workplace. I have a lot of systems and electronics experience. When I was growing up, we'd solder things on the weekends, so when I came to Tech, I learned the physics behind what I was doing. I'm looking for something space-related, and it'd be cool if it could be research and development, but I'm open to anything."

Hardy's classmates had similar experiences.

"They've been asking a lot about my research experience, and I've been able to tell them that I've been doing research with Professor [Brian] Gunter on the T.A.R.G.I.T satellite, and I've been working in the [Yang] Aero Maker Space," said Sarah Demsky, a third-year from Orlando, Florida. "I was also involved in the Yellow Jackets Space Program. I'm hoping that I've got  a summer internship lined up with a space company."

Master's student Robert "Casey" Wilson has a job offer waiting for him when he graduates in December 2019, but he wanted to see what else is out there in rocket propulsion.

"There are some great companies here," he said.

Second-year undergrad Nicholas Brophy was excited about lining up another summer internship for 2020.

"This past summer, I interned at UTC, doing systems manufacturing, and I loved it," he said. "It was the best experience ever.  I had a great boss and I learned a lot. I want to keep learning."

Observations like Brophy's were music to the ears of multiple employers at the Career Fair, including Aerojet Rocketdyne, Airbus, Area-I, Bell, GE, Gulfstream Aerospace, Hermeus, Honda Aircraft Company, Honeywell, MOOG Inc., Officer Selection Station Atlanta, OneWeb, MITRE, Triumph Group, United Airlines, United Technologies, Wencor Group  and The Spaceship Company.

Some companies, like Bell, didn't restrict their recruiting to the Career Fair. The rotorcraft powerhouse worked with the Georgia Tech Chapter of the Vertical Flight Society to collect resumes well ahead of Career Week; recruiters then organized private campus interviews with select candidates.

And, long after the AE Career Fair closed up shop for the day, Rob Stoker, Boeing's senior manager for product development, collaboration & commercial airlines, took two hours to give individualized resume and career advice to a roomful of aerospace engineering students. A member of the Aerospace Engineering School Advisory Council (AESAC), Stoker has long recognized the value of a Georgia Tech aerospace engineering degree. He earned three of them himself.

Check out the video to hear some of their comments.