What comes to mind when someone mentions “professional attire” or tells you that you should “dress professionally”? You probably think of ties, button-up shirts, suits and a notable lack of bright colors. Maybe you also think of the ways that dressing professionally can help you on your career journey.

 For example, there are plenty of internships out there that require you to wear professional attire. In addition, professional clothing can help with interviews. This is because dressing like a professional shows you’re really serious about the job and communicates a sense of competence to your employer, which really helps with first impressions. And finally, dressing professionally can also give you a boost in confidence. When you look the part, you increase your chances of rocking the part.

But of course, with all the benefits of professional clothing comes a fairly big downside: professional clothes can be pretty expensive. So for students who are down on cash, what can be done?

“Tech Threads”, that’s what!

A new program called “Tech Threads'' is on the rise and it’s here to assist students with all their professional clothing needs! Here in this piece, I have interviewed a staff member of CSEE and a student worker involved with this exciting new endeavor in an effort to shed some light on it.

We’ll start with my first interview, with Askia VanOmmeren Briggs.

Tell me about yourself.

“I am Askia VanOmmeren Briggs. I’m the Assistant Director of Experiential Education and I help students with their career development. I also run a few programs including the Edward Guiliano Global Fellowship and Consultants For The Public Good (CFPG), which is a skill based volunteering program. And I also coordinate the annual Community Engagement Day, which is happening this year, April 10th.”

Tell me about your role in Tech Threads.

“My role in Tech Threads has me doing a couple different things. Tech Threads is a professional closet created by New York Tech in order to provide students with professional clothes for their career endeavors. They can use it free of charge. I became a committee member to help the idea get off the ground. I help Mukhammedali, who is our lead tech threads ambassador, to recruit and staff tech threads through Consultants For the Public Good. By that, I mean we are using students as volunteers to staff tech threads: taking inventory, running social media, and communicating with outside organizations and partners to get our donations.”

“Amy Bravo is really helping to coordinate Tech Threads as a whole as well. Amy has worked with interior design students to create innovative storage solutions, implemented the systems.”

What do you hope students will gain from Tech Threads?

“I hope that students will not only improve their professional closets, which can be expensive and daunting to fulfill, but I also hope that it will give them the confidence and hope they need to enter the workforce, for those looking for interviews and internships, as they will now also look the part.”

With that, my interview with Askia concluded. I departed with a good idea of what Tech Threads is all about. He really helped me understand the program, but for the sake of this piece and its readers, I needed to get an even bigger view.

So the day after, I proceeded to interview Mukhammedali Zhadiger, the Senior Tech Threads consultant, to see what he had to say about the program and how it can help NYIT students.

Tell me about yourself.

“My full name is Mukhammedali Zhadiger, I’m from Kazakhstan and I’m studying for my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science degree as a freshman. I’m currently working with Tech Threads as a Senior Tech Threads Consultant. I have finished reviewing all the applicants and creating the Tech Threads team. For the past 3 weeks, I have received more than 38 applications, interviewed 29 of them, and selected 6 applicants for the New York City campus and 5 people for the Long Island campus.”

What is Tech Threads?

“It’s a startup program. Generally speaking it’s helpful for students, staff members and anyone who is part of NYIT. We’re basically offering free professional clothing and are planning to do workshops about how to wear professional clothing. It’s just a startup program so we haven’t decided too much yet, but we can say that Tech Thread’s main goal is to give professional clothing to New York Tech students.”

Tell me about your role in Tech Threads. What is it, what do you do, what you’ve done etc.

“I’m working as the Senior Tech Threads Consultant. I finished reviewing all the student applicants for the Manhattan Campus and I’ve accepted six applicants. So, including me, I will be working with seven people. I’ll essentially be creating two teams from Manhattan and Long island Campus and I’ll give them tasks such as how to manage and track inventory, how to do workshops, and how to create social media content.”

“We have two roles for those team members: Social Media Marketing and Community Outreach and Development. Team members working in Outreach and Development will be working closer to students and will provide them help with professional clothing, clothing size, and taking donations. Speaking of donations, we’re currently seeking some from outside of our Institution. From retail and other organizations. Aside from organizations, we also accept help from anyone who is part of NYIT for gently-used professional clothing. So Community Outreach and Development is basically taking donations, promoting tech threads, and helping the students.” 

“The other part, Social Media Marketing is related to social media. Our main focus there is Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok. We plan to have team members in this role create some reels and posts to promote our program because most of our students use Instagram, for example. We have to get attention from those students to see what we can offer. So, we’re going to improve this startup program and do as much as possible to promote Tech Threads as much as possible and in a good manner.”

What do you hope students will gain from Tech Threads?

“Aside from free professional clothing, we also offer to teach how to wear properly and what to wear for interviews and networking events. We are also planning to do workshops related to professional clothing. We also want to give students an idea of how business works and how to actively engage with and contribute to the vibrant NYIT community. That’s what we offer and what we hope students will gain.”

Mukhammedali went on to note that if any students were interested in learning more, NYIT’s website has a page dedicated to Tech Threads. That page can be found here.

This promising new program spearheaded by Student Engagement and Development, managed by Career Success & Experiential Education, and run by New York Tech Students is something no one should be afraid to utilize! It’s a way to get help from others as well as a way to give help to others.

So if you’re in need of professional clothing, be sure to check out Tech Threads when you can. And if you have any piece of professional clothing you’d like to donate, feel free to do so as well!