During the summer, students at Colgate University take part in various exciting opportunities. Some stay at Colgate to work on student research or pursue internships, while others take advantage of this time in other ways. This past summer, a small group of students stayed on campus as the school year wrapped up to take part in Career Service’s Job Skills Accelerator (JSA).

This program gives a few students who have just finished their sophomore year the opportunity to start learning skills that will aid them in their careers moving forward. Junior Zja’Kyla Brumfield, majoring in history and Spanish, started her summer by taking part in this unique program. 

Brumfield described the average workday during the program.

“[It started with] morning meetings with alumni, then the workday consisted of many hours of talk[s] from guest speakers and Career Services workers [which] lasted from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.,” Brumfield said.

The days were long but packed with valuable experiences that prepared each participant for their future career. One of the most important parts of the program was the personal connections participants were able to make with their “alumni mentors.” Each participant was assigned either one or two alumni who work in a career related to the student’s interests as mentors. 

Junior Danny Molyneux, majoring in applied math and computer science, spoke to the value of this experience. He worked with Colgate almuna Kallie McAndrew ’16 during the program. McAndrew currently works in the data analytics field at a company called Dataiku. She was matched with Molyneux for the program as he hopes to work in the data analytics world, specifically sports analytics, after graduating. 

“[McAndrew] was critical to my experience at the program. She gave me a ton of career advice and connected me with other people in the field who have a lot to offer,” Molyneux said.

Another monumental part of the experience for Molyneux was his micro-credential course in Tableau, a data visualization software.

“I hadn’t had experience with data visualization in my classes,” Molyneux said. “Understanding [data visualization] is incredibly important to landing a job in the world of data science so it was great to be able to get that experience.”

Junior Kyle Mayers, who also took part in the program, spoke about the importance of his alumni mentors and his micro-credential course.

“I had two alumni mentors: Brian White ’08 who is VP of operations at Lineleap and Daniel Berry ’17 who is a machine learning data scientist,” Mayers said. “My mentors helped me figure out that I wanted to work as a software engineer or product manager at an early to mid-stage startup, preferably at a consumer startup.”

This newfound vision for a potential career was further supplemented by Mayers’s micro-credential.

“I chose the [Harvard Business School Credential of Readiness] credential as I am interested in becoming a startup founder one day and wanted to learn about the basics of how businesses are run. JSA enabled me with the hard and soft skills necessary to discern what I want and gave me the confidence to act on my ambitions,” Mayers said.

While Brumfield, Molyneux and Mayers each got a lot of professional development through the program, they also got closer with other participants, strengthening their network with fellow Colgate students for years to come.

“One of the most fun parts about the program was going to Beattie [Reserve] with everyone and doing a bunch of team-building activities led by people in Outdoor Education,” Molyneux said. “[The program participants] did the ropes course and a bunch of other stuff. We got closer from that. There was one day where we all had some free time and we walked around Hamilton together and got Maxwell’s. I wasn’t really close with anyone on the program before but now whenever I see someone around campus I’ll stop and say hi.”

Through guest speaker lectures, alumni mentors, micro-credential programs and incredible networking opportunities, program participants all took something away that will no doubt help them in the future. For students interested in the program, more information is available online.