As a first-year student, Sean Woulfe knew he wanted to focus on business for his major, but he was unaware of the various paths he could take — sales, marketing, accounting and many more.

Woulfe said he was unaware that Chico State offered an entrepreneur option when he began as a student.

He has seen many students on campus realize that they were taking the wrong option for their major and had to switch later in their schooling.

“I hope I can help students not go through that or help in their decision-making process,” Woulfe said.

Woulfe is the president of Delta Sigma Pi, a business fraternity which held its first Biz Talks event on Thursday. More than 300 students attended. Inspiration came from TED Talks, but the fraternity had its own spin on it, which was “short talks.”

It’s fast-paced, and the idea was to not give the audience all the information at once, Woulfe said, but to give them enough so that they could start thinking and getting ideas about what was being presented to them.

The speakers at the event were some of Chico State’s alumni, so that students would be able “to see that they have the capability to work at companies or start their own,” Woulfe said.

The focus of the event was to help business students make more informed decisions when choosing their major and also to encourage them to join a club or to seek advising.

The fraternity chose to make a one-day conference out of Biz Talks rather than another type of format.

“If we just threw curriculum at students, it would just go right over their heads,” Wolfe said. “We really had to be engaging, entertaining and had to be inspiring.”

Setting up the event was not easy, but the fraternity is determined to put on Biz Talks yearly, as long as the College of Business and students enjoy it and learn from it.

Woulfe said he wanted students to be able to walk away with inspiration.

“They don’t have to love every aspect of Biz Talks,” he said. “But if they can walk away with one thing, it’s getting inspired by one of the subjects or one of the speakers.”

After the event, students were able to meet with the speakers in the courtyard to discuss their career paths.

Although this event had been focused on business students, other can reap the benefits, Woulfe said.

“Anyone could get value out of these talks,” he said. “There are a lot of lessons learned that some of these speakers talked about that can be applied in everyday life.”

Brianne McEvoy can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.