Broncos Helping Broncos
Heidi Williams
One of the perks of a Santa Clara education is gaining access to the great network of Bronco alumni and alumnae.
Tapping into that network can be a challenge for current undergraduate students, so to help them out (and to give our newest engineering alums a chance to give back) the School of Engineering has established the Alumni/ae Mentoring Program through Mentor Collective, providing sophomores and new transfer students one-on-one help for navigating school and career challenges and opportunities.
Prior to the start of the fall quarter, engineering sophomores and transfer students were invited to participate in the program, and after taking a survey to assess personality and experience, enrollees were matched with an alum based on common interests, background, academics, and professional goals.
Ellie Glenn, a bioengineering major on the pre-med track has dreams of being a doctor, but also wants to find out more about other career opportunities within bioengineering and is hoping to find an internship with a biotech company.
Her mentor, Katie Connelly ’17, M.S. ’18, who works at Abbott as a Coronary Senior Clinical Field Specialist, is excited to help. "I received a lot of help from and sought the advice of people I knew in the industry when I was going through Santa Clara and I wouldn’t have achieved what I have today without them. In the most basic way, I’d like to pay that forward and help the next ones in
line," Katie said.
In just the first two weeks of the program, 113 student mentees were matched, 177 alumni/ae mentors were enrolled, and 61 alums were trained and matched. And the numbers continue to grow!
Find more information on the program here.