You can always tell that the career fair has arrived when flocks of students in wrinkly suits are seen carrying around bright tote bags filled to the top with cup koozies, water bottles, pens, notepads, and t-shirts. Yesterday, I was on a mission: No, not to get a job, but to find the best free swag the career fair had to offer.  Below were my favorite finds:

Most Creative – Carpenter
Carpenter manufactures foam (you know, for sleeping on or making anything more cushy), and they brought their swag A-game to the career fair. They provided foam cut-outs spelling Penn State. This was the first booth where I was genuinely exciting to be taking the product home with me, and that special piece of foam is now proudly displayed in my apartment. Well played, Carpenter. Well played.

The College Dream – Coyote
Coyote’s booth had everything a Penn State student could ever desire to take home from a career fair:  foam fingers, footballs, decks of cards, cups, bottle openers, water bottles, ice scrapers, pens, sunglasses, and laundry bags! Their booth was hands down the most exciting, with very eager recruiters and the best spread of swag by far. I would highly suggest you check out their booth if you are interested in logistics at all (or, you know, if you just want to steal some cool neon-green freebies).

The Practical but not Common – Geico
I’m sure this pick was biased (I worked in the ice cream business for six years), but I think we can all agree that an ice cream scooper is always a nice kitchen utensil to have. I have never seen a company bring ice cream scoopers to hand out (not even Edy’s!). The recruiter suggested I take the purple one, but the scooper does come in multiple colors.

Bring Me Back to my Childhood – Toys R Us
This is the cutesy booth of the career fair. Handing out stuffed Jeffrey the Giraffe’s and chapstick (random…but still an awesome give-away), Toys R Us brought me to my happy place in the BJC.

The Mystery Bag of Goodies – Unilever
I spotted the Unilever mystery bag and was immediately intrigued. After digging through this goody bag, I found many Unilever products, including iced tea, body wash, Q-tips, and chapstick (yes, again). These will come in handy for carry-on bags at the airport (who doesn’t need travel-sized products?).

These were my favorite finds of the day. If you took home anything cool from the career fair that I missed, let us know in the comments!