Career and Grad School Fair...helpful or not?

For the past three years at WPI, there is only one thing I had heard about the Fall Career Fair from life sciences students...there are no bio-related companies...ever. That is why I was definitely more than just hesitant to go this year, even as a senior. But then I saw the list of grad schools going the second day of the fair, and I rushed to improve my resume before the fair (during class, I might add...tsk, tsk) so that I could walk in there with a good resume, and not look foolish (good thing I wasn't wearing jeans). Anyways, I realised that it doesn't matter what others have to say when it comes to career fairs, because often people have a very biased opinion.

First of all, I met a few grad schools that I was really interested in, and have great science programs as masters and PhDs. In fact, I even found out that Northeastern is having an Open House type of thing for the program I am interested in a couple of weeks, where I should definitely go with a lot of questions, a lot of research done on their PhD program and a good resume, if I want to be considered already for that program...of course now I'll be stressed out preparing for that :P

Moreover, I actually met a really good biotechnology company, that also does other areas of research, management, engineering, etc. They seemed eager to meet biotechnology students and were looking to hire for next year. In fact, I just e-mailed them and am hoping to hear from them soon :)

I have to agree that some schools I met were definitely not prepared to answer questions about their biotech department. But the little information they gave me was enough for me to go home and do a little research to follow up on that info.

Overall, I would have definitely missed out a LOT if I hadn't attended this fair. I actually found out that I did miss a great bio company in Cambridge the first day of the fair-where I didn't go because I didn't know any bio companies were going. So I definitely learned that different students can have different experiences, and that it's worth a shot to check out all career and grad school fair our school hosts, because you never know what you'll learn.