Mentees become the mentors

For college students, a mentor is a valuable resource for gaining insight into potential careers. In Harpur College, some of those students-turned-alumni are now paying it forward.

Multiple students involved in the early years of the Liberal Arts to Careers Externship (LACE) program, organized by Harpur Edge, have become mentors to current students.

LACE is a winter and summer externship program that matches Harpur College students with alumni in their field of interest for a three- to five-day shadowing partnership. Students experience several days-in-the-life of their mentors, while meeting other professionals in the industry and testing the fit of their intended careers.

“The goal was to connect Harpur College students with alumni to see, firsthand, the value of their liberal arts education,” says Wendy Neuberger ‘81, MBA ‘84, director of Harpur Edge, who was hired in 2010 to create and launch LACE. “Participants learn that a degree is only one factor in a person’s career path. Equally important is acquiring skills that a liberal arts degree provides, including critical thinking, written and oral communication, and applied learning.”

The ‘full-circle’ experience

Tara-Marie Lynch ‘12 was a student in the first summer of the LACE program, and she shadowed a Harpur graduate in Manhattan - one of 16 alumnistudent matches. Today she’s director of marketing at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

“Wendy Neuberger introduced me to [LACE], which sparked my love for the hustle and bustle of New York City when I shadowed on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs,” Lynch says. “The program allowed me to experience, firsthand, electronic trading, e-commerce business development and hedge fund account-relationship management.”

Since graduating, Lynch has participated in LACE nearly every year, sponsoring more than five students.

“Serving as a LACE mentor has been such a ‘full-circle’ experience for me, in that it allows me to give back to students some of what Binghamton has given me,” Lynch says. “Harpur students are armed with a powerful liberal arts education upon graduation - and it’s important, ahead of entering the real world, to explore different career paths and get a taste for certain industries as an undergraduate.”

One of the students who shadowed Lynch is Rebecca Cohen ‘18, who graduated with a degree in political science and is now enrolled in Binghamton University’s Master of Public Administration program.

“Tara-Marie, even though I was with her for less than a week, made me feel valued and that I was really helping the company while learning,” Cohen says. “I started the experience thinking I wanted to work at a think tank but left with the confidence that I would be an asset to any policy advocacy organization.”

Harpur Edge also offers distance mentoring to students, a more flexible option for alumni who are unable to have a student at their place of work. These mentor-student pairs are made through a virtual database, and connecting takes place via phone, email and Skype. Many of the mentors were LACE mentees themselves.

Kelly Keill ‘16 is a distance mentor. Now a human resources associate at Morgan Stanley, Keill started with an integrative neuroscience degree and ended up in her field because of LACE.

“I actually did the LACE program and got set up with someone in HR and thought, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe I’ll keep that in the back of my head, but I’m still pre-med right now,’” Keill says. “I ended up with an internship in financial services recruiting and then saw Morgan Stanley come on campus.”

Keill encourages students to keep their options open and trust their gut.

“[LACE] opened my eyes to something I didn’t even know existed,” Keill says. “You can do anything that you want to do as long as you put your mind to it and work hard.”

Always learning and teaching

Rebecca Pepe ‘14 and Nicole Dipaoli ‘14 both credit LACE with helping them understand how to use a broad liberal arts education to narrow their career search.

Pepe, who studied psychology and biological anthropology in Harpur College, shadowed a Harpur alumna at the New York Legal Assistance Group, which honed her interest in the public sector. She went on to receive a master’s in public health from Yale University and now works as a research project manager at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It helped me reimagine what it meant to work at a nonprofit,” Pepe says. “Like the New York Legal Assistance Group, my work here at UPenn has the same goal: not trying to meet a bottom line but trying to do good. [LACE] expanded my idea of what that would look like.”

Pepe has plenty of advice for her own LACE mentees.

“Within the week that I signed up as a distance mentor, a student reached out to me with a question,” Pepe says. “Her question was about double majoring and whether or not it was worth it. And what I had double majored in was exactly what she was considering. I thought the double major was awesome. A few years down the road, your GPA won’t really make sense to put on a résumé. But you’ll never take off your double major.”

Dipaoli was also able to build a course load unique to her interests at Harpur College. Guided by a desire to work with people in the health field, she studied integrative neuroscience and minored in health and wellness. As a LACE participant, she shadowed an alumna who directs the Friedberg Jewish Community Center on Long Island, N.Y., and observed the launch of a new, overall wellness campaign using their fitness center.

She now has a master’s degree in nutrition from Hunter College and is a dietetic intern at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and she still relies on mentors.

“I’m interested in pediatrics, and it’s funny because pediatrics is not really considered entry-level, so it’s kind of difficult to go right into that from interning,” she says. “That’s also why it’s been important to me to have mentors from that perspective. I’ve had a lot of interaction with dietitians who are currently working in pediatric nutrition, so it’s still going full circle for me.

“The value of mentors is being able to expose students or even professionals who may be new to the profession to something they haven’t seen before. A lot of times students who are reaching out are similar to myself,” Dipaoli says. “I would only hope to be able to give that back, because I was in their shoes not too long ago.”