Diablo Valley College launched a new event on Oct. 10, Applied and Fine Arts Career Day, to help students gain a better understanding of the careers they can pursue with their arts majors.

Humanities professor Ruth Miller coordinated the panel, which took place in the Diablo Room, to support students’ success. The crowd was so large that many students had to stand or sit on the ground during the presentation. 

“There is a lack of clarity as to what kind of jobs these majors can lead to,” said Miller. 

Two of the seven panel speakers graduated from San Francisco State University. One of them, Sayopko Caproni, earned her Humanities degree. Caproni shared her experience going from intern to program manager at Amazon. 

“She was able to (take) her humanities degree and apply it to her job at Amazon, which showed the diversity of what you can do with your degree,” said Ahmad Baydoun, a political science and macroeconomics major at DVC who attended the event. Though Baydoun stumbled by accident on the event, he found it inspirational and a good experience overall.

Maria Egoavil, also a graduate of SFSU with a Liberal Studies degree, had two minors: education and museum studies. Egoavil is now the Public Programs Administrative Assistant for the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. She spoke about what she does at work, and what it took to get there. 

“My last internship was at a computer history museum for teen programs. It completely changed my life by helping me with the precision I have now,” said Egoavil. 

Baydoun said he thinks it was important that the speakers came to DVC. According to him, they provided a diverse set of perspectives and careers that came from being an applied or fine arts major.

“The speakers gave a real world example on how you can succeed being an art major,” said Baydoun.

The Applied and Fine Arts Career Day was a crucial step as it served as an inspiration for students to research careers art degrees can offer. The school is planning to put on more events like this one in the future. 

“We are definitely instituting this as an annual event,” said Miller.