On Friday September 28th 2018, I revisited all of the booths in the career fair including those that I made professional mentors at. As an UMSL Graduate student, I can say many things on finding professional mentors as I have been working on this since my Undergraduate career.
Most would not expect or want to get a professional mentor. News Flash!!! Every single college student should grow their network professional. In order to find the best professional mentor, one students would need to get more involved in campus organizations. However, that is not my focus here. My focus is that when in a conference such as the Grace Hopper Celebration occurs that students that have the bandwidth to attend should definitely go. As a first timer, I was not sure what to expect but by the end of my first day I had already handed out about 10 or more business cards to connect with recruiters and other attendees.
The biggest hit for me at this conference was growing a connection with almost 10 recruiters from one company. I did this by consistently going to their booth and learning about what they do and to observe how they work with each other. Not only did I make a great professional connection with them but I also made a friend out of them. Professional Mentors, such as the ones I made at the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), are important to have. In the future I can use this connections with Neversa “Nelly” Mustafic, Aarti Pandey, Monet Sangermano, and Sarah Feller to enhance a better experience in areas that I may need help in. It is always good to keep in touch with the professional mentors in your circle as they can help you in many ways. I will keep and maintain my professional connections with this AMD group as they were inspirational to me in many ways.
#UMSL #Information Systems #Hopper #Women in Technology #UMSL2GHC