APCC Theme
Each year with APCC, we've made an effort to improve the conference by adding themes that would help us share with our guests, students, faculty, and staff, the focus we have on bringing everyone together. For the first two years, we were trying to figure things out and were very excited just to have the event. Over the following years, we have chosen themes that we believe will inspire our students to attend the conference, encourage them to network, practice their skills, and think about their future.
APCC 2024's theme is "Navigating Success: Empowering Students in their Educational Voyage.” This theme was chosen to capture the essence of our conference's objectives of providing tools for our students to navigate their pathways after BYU–Hawaii. Career Services believes that the educational journey is not only about acquiring knowledge but also navigating the path to success in careers and graduate studies. The theme reflects our commitment to empowering students in this comprehensive voyage, guiding them through the complexities of professional development and post-graduate pursuits. It emphasizes the importance of strategic navigation, equipping students with the skills, knowledge, and connections needed to chart a successful course in their academic and professional endeavors. Through this theme, we aim to inspire and support students on their educational voyage towards a prosperous and fulfilling future.
APCC 2023, last year, Career Services chose the theme, “Expand Your Horizons.” We hoped that this theme would help our students seek out new experiences, see their potential, and work towards attaining their lifelong goals, dreams, and, ultimately, success. We wanted our students to get out of their comfort zone, to have success and failure, so they could learn and experience professional settings that would help them feel a sense of accomplishment. APCC is an opportunity for our students, campus ohana, and invited guests to network, connect, and discuss education, and trends in different industries, professions, and countries. It's a platform that encourages practice, coaching, and mentoring and is beneficial to all who participate.
APCC 2022, we had a successful conference that was themed, “Chart Your Course.” This theme was chosen to support our new alignment and reorganization within our Ho’okele department. We felt that it reflected our efforts to help support our students with their professional goals and development skills.
APCC 2021, because of COVID, we were unable to have APCC in 2021, but we continued to connect with many of our partners around the globe. We were still successful in hosting many, many, many ZOOM and other virtual meetings to stay in touch with organizations in the U.S., Hawaii, Oceania, and Asia.
APCC 2020, we chose “Navigating the Seas of Career Exploration.” As students, we understand the difficulty of selecting our next steps in life, and this theme was selected to help provide insight and guidance to our students, which was successfully done throughout the conference. We were blessed to continue the conference despite the looming and inevitable impacts of COVID. A week after our conference, the world shut down due to the pandemic.
APCC 2019, we chose the theme, “We Belong Together - Contributing to Peace in the Asia/Pacific through Employment” to inspire unity and focus on our target area efforts in education and employment. Much of our current success in Career Services and partnerships started to develop via this conference, and we have seen some amazing developments as a result. The recent signing of the General Bilateral Agreement (GBA) with Bicol University in the Philippines was a result of the collaborations that have taken place over the years with APCC. This partnership helps our Filipino students that are returning home to have a bridge to becoming licensed in the Philippines in their chosen professions of psychology, accounting, social work, and education.
2018, we started our first APCC conference with just 50 employers, a few graduate programs, and 20+ welfare and self-reliance managers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that represented Asia and Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Oceania. This first year we didn't select a theme but were focused on the idea of bringing our partners from these locations to meet with our students. The result was amazing, and since then, we have continued to build and grow the conference.