As a freshman NIU softball player from St. Louis, Jaylyn Brister knows why she’s majoring in kinesiology.
“I’m a student-athlete. I’ve been through injuries. I’m really interested in how the body works,” Brister says. “Using my muscles and my body as an athlete, it’s just important to me to know what goes on behind the skills I’m performing on the field.”
How she might use her eventual degree – cardiac rehabilitation – is just as personal.
“My grandpa just recently had a stroke, so he’s in cardiac rehabilitation right now,” she says. “I think it’s very interesting and can save a lot of lives.”
Brister was among more than 200 Huskies from the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education who browsed a Feb. 26 career fair in Anderson Hall. Representatives from 54 employers came with jobs and internships available, all of which are perfect fits for students in NIU’s kinesiology and sport management programs.
Required to attend for her LESM 152 course, she felt “really glad I came. I’m learning a lot about other career paths I can go down. I talked to HealthFitness, ATI, Athletico and some other PT-related businesses, talking about health and nutrition.”
The Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education launched its in-house career fair in 2023 to more efficiently engage students with industry contacts and to leverage the long-standing relationships that faculty had cultivated.
Employers included hospitals, YMCAs, minor league sports teams, physical therapy clinics, fitness centers, park districts, NIU Huskie Athletics and even Project FLEX.
“We were so impressed by the professionalism and preparedness of our students, many of whom were dressed in business attire, brought resumes and came with lots of timely and relevant questions for our partner organizations. Our current students are definitely looking forward to and excited about their futures,” says Rachel Kowal, instructor, lab coordinator and co-chair for the KNPE Career Day steering committee.
“Our partner organizations enjoyed the number of students who participated in the event. They also enjoyed meeting students interested in many of the diverse career tracks in our field,” she adds. “Some physical therapy clinics were excited that our undergraduates had an interest in pursuing their final internship in the field of PT. For them, it was a shift from only having graduate students intern at their facilities.”
Sean McGrath, director of Ticket Sales for the Joliet Slammers Baseball Club, called the NIU students “great – very engaging and asking a lot of questions.”
“We’re looking for prospective candidates for some our internships this summer. We have a box office internship where you’re working closely with Ticket Sales and different promotions,” McGrath says. “We also have seasonal positions working at our concessions and our gate.”
Gaining such experience provides more than a highlight on a résumé, he adds.
“If you’re working in sports, and especially in an internship in minor league baseball, you have a specific thing you’re doing but you’re also learning about the entire team and the different roles within the organization,” he says. “We’re a smaller organization, so there are many different hats you have to wear, and it prepares you well for whatever you’re looking to go on and do.”
Alexa Schnittka, assistant general manager of the Chicago Union professional ultimate Frisbee team, oversees sponsorships, marketing, ticket sales, team development and more: “It’s a fun job to have,” she says.
NIU students impressed her – “They’re super-easy to talk to, really well prepared on what to do at a career fair and have a lot of interest in ultimate frisbee, too, which is always fun,” she says – and already are at an advantage.
“Having that education piece tie in a lot of what you learn in class into the real world?” Schnittka says. “I’ve seen that for myself, going from school into a full-time role.”
Jerica Nitz and Tricia Sawyer came in search of interns to work in their cardiopulmonary rehabilitation department in Rockford.
“We have a very aggressive and growing program at UW Health Northern Illinois-SwedishAmerican, and we really need to bump up our ability to take in our student-interns so that we can grow our professional pool of people who we could potentially hire,” said Sawyer, who manages outpatient therapy.
“The students we’ve met have been very friendly, very inquisitive and asking really great questions,” added Nitz, clinical coordinator. “They’re trying to gather information about what we do and what we have to offer.”
For Jordon Kush, a senior Kinesiology major from Joliet, the goal was to find an internship in a different kind of rehabilitation.
“I’ve always been into fitness, and I’ve had my fair share of injuries, so I just want to help athletes from injury,” said Kush, who played basketball and ran cross country and track.
“I’m definitely looking for a physical therapy clinic to shadow someone and get that valuable experience,” he added. “I’ve been learning all of what I’m supposed to in class, but you’ve got to be able to apply that in the workplace.”
Like Kush, Ashanti Ford, a senior Sport Management major from suburban Matteson, played basketball and ran track.
Now she’s ready to turn her passion into a vocation.
“I’ve always been involved in sports, from middle school, and I realized at one point that I was done playing but still enjoyed being around athletes. I was a manager for a lot of different teams my junior and senior years of high school,” Ford said.
She enjoyed meeting with the employers, including HealthFitness.
“One of the bigger benefits was talking about how they provide help with progressing within the company so you’re not just staying in one spot. That’s intriguing because you never want to be in one place for long,” she said. “They also talked about how they get you certified for different things in order to move up into those different positions.”
Harley Miller, also a senior Sport Management major, dreams of working in the front office of the Chicago Cubs.
The native of Rock City, Illinois, is grateful for her time as a Huskie: “All of my professors have done a great job.”
Miller’s NIU résumé includes attending January’s TeamWork Online Sport Sales Workshop and Job Fair in Cleveland with NIU faculty Wonock Chung and David Serowka and participated last semester on the Sport Sales team.
Her browse of the career fair included a chat with Patrick Tkachuk, an account executive in ticket sales for the Rockford Icehogs hockey team. It was a connection she already had made; Tkachuk had been a guest speaker during one of her classes in Anderson Hall.
Although Miller doesn’t compete on a rink – she’s played softball since the age of 5 – she’s open to any job in sport even if bats, balls and bases aren’t involved.
“I’ve been around the industry, and it’s a really great industry,” she said. “Female athletics is on the rise, and I definitely want to be a part of it.”
