Miss Xavier partners with Career Services to increase students career readiness

September 22, 2024

By: Kamryn Edwards, Staff Writer

The 89th Miss Xavier University of Louisiana, Youma Diabira, connected with Career Services to give students an opportunity to learn more about career readiness and take free headshots. 

“The purpose of this event was for students to start the year off with headshots and to be able to kind of just be equipped to step into the job market,” said Diabira. “The biggest takeaway I wanted for students was for them to get comfortable introducing themselves as they get more opportunities at Xavier,” Diabira added.  

Focusing on the confidence students need to sell themselves in the job market, Diabira led an exercise where each student got the chance to learn what goes into pitching.  

“We actually had people go around and do their intro, so like stating their names and different things they are involved in, different career interests, almost how you would at a career fair, so that when people start going to the career fairs that Career Services has, they’ll already be comfortable doing that,” Diabira said.  

Some students took full advantage of what this event had to offer. Olivia Fields, a sophomore biology pre-med major expressed her appreciation for the headshots and found them very useful.  

“I went to get my headshots taken today because I need them for clubs and internships. A friend of mine told me about this, so I decided to come up and get them taken,” Fields said. “Career-wise, I want to be a pediatrician,” Fields added. 

Career Services aims to provide students with ample resources that would benefit their career goals and aspirations. Ryland Wells, a career advisor with Career Services, enjoyed partnering with Miss Xavier to orchestrate this event of professionalism.  

“I’m servicing as one of the representatives for this event, so me and Youma worked together to provide professional development and information and to also give headshots for our students free of charge,” Wells said. “I’m hoping that the students took away from this first and foremost how to present yourself, our elevator pitch, essentially what you want to say when you’re trying to really big up yourself and then to have an awareness of the resources that career services provide,” Wells added.