On Wednesday the Career Center, sponsored by Student Affairs, held the discussion panel, Greek Careers: “Greek Life After College.”

Eric Anderson, manager of Career Advising and Professional Development, at the University of Idaho, said an intern last year came up with the idea of putting together a panel discussion of how people in the Greek system at UI can use their educations, skills and experiences to help them with their career down the road.

The panel included Leane Ralstin, career adviser at the Career Center, Colleen Quinn, UI Director of Student Development, Collegiate Development Consultant Molly Peirano, a Delta Gamma alumna of Ohio State University and Special Events and Marketing Coordinator for the Student Recreation Center Kristin Strong, a Gamma Phi Beta alumna. The panel also included Kristin Mcgee who works as the sorority coordinator for new chapters at Gamma Phi Beta for new chapter resources and special recruitment consultant.

UI Greek adviser Matt Kurz graduated from the State University of New York at Oneonta in 2007 after founding a Phi Psi fraternity chapter. Kurz said when he graduated after applying to 100 jobs across the country he got three interviews. One was with Google in California, one with Progressive Car Insurance in New Jersey and the third with St. John’s in Queens, N.Y.

“I had to make a decision between working for Google in Mountain View, Calif. and working at a Catholic school for a third of the salary of what Google would have been,” Kurz said. “I chose to work for fraternities for my life because I wanted to take a path that I cared about rather than being a customer support person for Google.”

He said being the Greek adviser and understanding the system transfers to his position because it’s what he experienced in college.

There are staff positions with the North American Fraternity Conference, the higher education side of things or specifically Greek life side of things within a university, Kurz said. There are also options within the external national organizations and private businesses that serve the fraternity and sorority movement.

“Every interview that I’ve ever been in has to do with how I would deal with situations such as overcoming the problem of having difficult people to work with,” Kurz said.

He said this goes back to the experience of being in Greek life which may include being forced to deal with people that you don’t like and that’s, something, the general college student isn’t exposed to that as much.

“It’s a very valuable thing in an interview to show that you’ve dealt with adversarial things, challenged yourself and overcame it,” Kurz said.

Aaron Wolfe can be reached at arg-news@uidaho.edu

Philip Vukelich | Argonaut

Matt Kurz, Greek Adviser, speaks at Greek Careers: Greek Life After College Sept. 26 in the Idaho Commons. The event, hosted by the University of Idaho Career Center, focused on how students can continue the Greek life experience after graduation.

Tags: Eric Anderson, Leane Ralstin, Matt Kurz