CAN Event

What is CAN?

CAN, or the Coop Alumni Network is a forum for previous Careers program students. All students who complete or currently are completing a placement with Careers become a member and are invited to the annual CAN Event. It is a place to network with the expertise, knowledge and experience of former students and industry partners while engaging with keynote speakers of the night. It encourages past students to form a strong and supportive community that can further develop CAN members, both personally and professionally.

The 2015 CAN event was recently held at Parramatta Campus on Thursday, 21 May 2015. You can see footage from the event in the video at the top of this page.

Is there a theme?

Yes! The CAN event is centred on a different theme each year that aims to capture what is trending at the time. Last year was themed Global Connections – A Career with No Boundaries and the year prior was Online Networking. This year is very special as we are Celebrating 20 Years of the Internship Program.

When is the next CAN Function?

The next CAN event will take place in mid 2016.

CAN Function 2015 – Celebrating 20 Years of the Internship Program

Freny Tayebjee, Manager of Careers congratulating the past and present interns of the Internship Program

Thursday, 21 May 2015 was a special night of celebrations. To commemorate 20 years of the Internship Program the Careers team celebrated with past and current interns, and current students and alumni at the Academy Space on Parramatta Campus.

The night kicked off with an icebreaker activity, Career Heads. It was a fun and energetic version of Celebrity Heads where students asked questions to reveal the mysterious job they were assigned. This was then followed by two presentations by Western Sydney University alumnus, Steven Semmens (Director of The Persuader) and Careers intern and alumna, Stacey Grieco. Both guest speakers presented insightful, invigorating and inspiring content which proved valuable for students entering the workforce as graduates, and as students wanting internships. The final activity of the night saw a lot of toilet paper flying all through the air with teams having to make a toilet paper sculpture to convey 'celebrations'. The winning team was chosen by Mr. Semmens and Ms Grieco which went to the team who sculptured a dragon from a Chinese New Year celebration!

The event wrapped up with a toast to the 20th anniversary of the Internship Program and more importantly, to the interns as there would be no internship program without these amazing students and graduates. It was a great night and high commendations should be given to everyone who made the event happen: Alumni (Graduates of Western Sydney University) and the Careers team.

CAN Function 2014 - Global Connections – A Career with No Boundaries

Karl Gessner talking to the CAN guests about his career path and working with an international firm.

On Tuesday, 5 August 2014 CAN members engaged in this year's hot topic: Global Connections – A Career with No Boundaries.

Attendees got straight into the night with the Cross-Cultural Embarrassing Stories activity facilitated by Careers Education Consultant, Jackie Simpson. It was an energetic and fun activity in which attendees formed smaller groups to tell their embarrassing travel stories and how they overcame it.

This was followed by two very special keynote speakers to hone in on the theme of global connections. Karl Gessner from Deloitte Private kicked off the first presentation followed by Andreas Zagas from Tata Consultancy Services. Both presentations were engaging and insightful with the students feeling a little starstruck at having the opportunity to listen to partners from such global companies!

Guests were freshened with some light food and drink which brought together the networking segment of the night where students were able to speak with Mr. Gessner and Mr. Zagas.