Students and alumni connect for career conversations at Sophomore Connections 2015
Students and alumni connect for career conversations at Sophomore Connections 2015
It’s never too early to listen for a calling.
Last weekend, Colgate University hosted its award-winning SophoMORE Connections program. It brought nearly 400 second-year students together with 125 alumni who had a single objective: to help undergraduates clarify the path toward employment after graduation.
“We don’t expect that you’re going to know your life plan,” Alumni Council Chair Terry Egler ’77 told attendees. “The whole point of Sophomore Connections is to explore and learn and figure out where your strengths and weaknesses are — what you like and what you don’t like.”
SophoMORE Connections is one part of a decade-long conversation that the university initiates with students at matriculation. Career services staff formed 16 career-specific breakout sessions, hosted by leading alumni in communications, finance, education, the common good, the arts, and more. They also offered sessions on resume writing, networking, and summer research opportunities.
Yee-Ann Cho ’90, senior vice president at the Colorado Education Initiative, delivered a keynote address to a packed Huntington Gymnasium on Friday afternoon. Cho traced her roots from Brooklyn, NY, to suburban Denver, to Hamilton where she studied international affairs.
After spending time at a small international nonprofit in Washington, D.C., the issue of public education captured her attention and refused to let go. Cho referred to her laser-like focus as a driving force in every subsequent step of her career: from graduate school to a job with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; from joining the office of Colorado Lieutenant-Governor Barbara O’Brien to starting her own charter school management company.
It also gave her invaluable perspective to share with undergraduates. “There are jobs in your future that we cannot even begin to conceive of today,” Cho said. “The benefit of attending a liberal arts school like Colgate is that it will prepare you to be successful no matter what career path you pursue.”
Cho also encouraged students to build strong relationships with their professors and members of the Colgate alumni network.
That message resonated with Emma Schoenberger ’17. “It was so encouraging to see the amount of alumni support available to us,” Schoenberger said. “All the alumni there were invested enough in us and our success to come back to campus, talk about what they do, give us their phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and reassure us that not having it all figured out was OK.”
The ability to pivot in any direction, to find professional fulfillment, and to receive the support that comes from a strong network of alumni and friends — these are just a few of the hallmarks of the Colgate experience, enhanced by SophoMORE Connections and the Center for Career Services.
“Our goal at SophoMORE Connections is not to have students identify the job from which they’ll retire,” said career services director Michael Sciola. “Our goal is to teach them to know themselves well, to see ‘career’ as a life-long journey, and to introduce them to the power of the Colgate network.”