Fayetteville Today

Fayetteville State University wants to do what it can to encourage its students not only to graduate, but also make sure they're on track to get the type of job they want.

With that as the goal, the university recently spent $300,000 on an initiative that will connect students to career opportunities. It's a 36-foot-long, 7-foot-tall digital wall that projects images and information about students who are awarded paid internships.

One thing it has done is to spark a kind of competition among the students.

"A lot of people have been trying to get on the wall," junior Brianna Alston, an accounting major, told WTVD this week. "It's life-changing." 

She saw her picture up there after she was offered a paid internship with FedEx.

"It's been overwhelming honestly," she said. "I got to go to (New York City) for the first time, and I went to the stock exchange with FedEx to do the ringing-of-the-bell ceremonies."

In Alston's case, the electronic wall served its purpose, the WTVD report said. Her photo on the wall inspired other students to ask her how they could get a paid internship too. 

That is the type of thing the university hopes to inspire.

"We also want to make sure they are graduating and getting the jobs that they want after they finish and leave us," Yasmine Farley, director of Career Services, told WTVD.

The digital wall is only a month old, but Farley noted that already more students have stopped by her office in an effort to reach out to company partners that can help them. So far, more than 100 students have received paid internships. The university would like that number to hit at least 750 within three years.

"Seeing the excitement that they have about not only getting their name and face on this wall but the experience that they are going to get—that they know is going to help them toward their future—I mean it is just so valuable to me and makes my work very meaningful," Farley said.