One of the best aspects of the QUEST community is the willingness of our 1,400+ alumni to give back and help current students as they explore different career paths. Instead of having students independently search for mentors by combing through the QUEST Directory, QUEST Corporate launched a new mentorship program this semester for students to learn one-on-one from QUEST alumni.
43 current students participated in this amazing new mentorship program. Based on students’ responses to a questionnaire – and with the help of Assistant Director Jess Roffe – relevant alumni mentors were hand-picked for each of the students. The program consisted of three meetings: an informal get-to-know-you, a resume review and mock interview, and a session on exit opportunities and how to move relationships forward. I reached out to a few QUESTees to learn more about how their interactions with their mentors went!
Dillyn Payne (Cohort 32)
“My mentor is Stephen Barbagallo (Cohort 20), an engineer at SpaceX! He is currently a Lead Supplier Development Engineer and aids with manufacturing processes. I am very interested in learning more about manufacturing opportunities, so we were a perfect fit in my opinion! So far, I’ve learned a lot about his role, and he’s helped me obtain a clearer idea about opportunities I might want to pursue in the future. Stephen also completed his masters degree and began to work towards obtaining his PhD, which I was also thinking about pursuing, so I was able to gain some insight and advice about higher education experiences too. I really enjoyed having someone with real-world experience to talk to about my similar career interests and getting advice on things I could do now to accomplish my current goals.”
“My biggest takeaway from meeting with Stephen is ironically that I need to think more about what I want to do post-graduation. Initially, I thought I had a really clear idea of the jobs and opportunities I might want to explore, but Stephen helped me realize that I might not have thought everything through. For example, for the longest time, I’ve said I want to become a professor later in life. However, after reflecting on how I’m not the biggest fan of research, I started looking more into humanitarian engineering so that I can still share the knowledge I have to help others!”
Siddharaj Vaghela (Cohort 34)
“My mentor, Amanda Shekarchi (Cohort 22), works as a software consultant. This upcoming summer, I am interning as a technology consultant for a company called CapTech in Virginia, so there was some overlap in our career interests. Being an underclassmen, it’s hard to get proper guidance about my career, or even how to better navigate the current college journey. Having a mentor is so helpful for this, but it’s often hard to find one or even one that is in the career that you hope to be in at one time. The mentorship program is good in that it gives you an advantage in your undergraduate years by connecting you to someone who you can ask questions to in order to feel less anxious about graduating.”
“My meetings with my mentor definitely taught me how different software technology is from normal software engineering jobs that most CS students get out of college. I also learned about how many of the lessons from QUEST and my traditional CS curriculum can be applied for my future role. We got a chance to go over how I could best stand out during my internship, such as what things to look out for, how to interact with technology clients, and so much more.”
Siddharaj meets with his mentor Amanda via Zoom
Lydia Runnals (Cohort 33)
“My mentor was Isabelle Lock (Cohort 25). She is currently a 3rd year medical student at University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her career interests align very well with mine, as we would both like to be physicians one day. However, she is currently pursuing a specialty in OB/GYN and I hope to pursue either pediatric surgery or trauma surgery. I enjoyed a lot about this program — I was able to hear directly from a current medical school student and receive a real look into what medical school is like. She was extremely helpful in planning my schedule from now until I apply to medical school and teaching me what I should be doing to improve my chances of getting in somewhere. Isabelle gave me a bunch of tips and helped me plan when I should take the MCAT and how to study for it. We did a mock interview for medical school, which was extremely helpful because I learned where I need to improve my application and what experiences I need to gain before I apply. She also discussed her gap year with me and gave me ideas for what I can do during my gap year.”
“My biggest takeaway from our meetings was probably to make sure I am ahead of schedule and getting everything in early, like applications. Another big takeaway from our meetings was the schedule she created for me, because it is a timeline of everything I need to do and when I need to do it, which will make sure I am on track for applying for medical school.”
Thank you to our 43 alumni who mentored students and to QUEST Corporate for organizing this growth opportunity for students! If you’re interested in connecting with fellow QUESTees, students and alumni can receive the log-in information for the QUEST Directory by reaching out to jroffe@umd.edu.