Many Colgate students are unsure about jobs they will want to pursue after college. Career Services Day in the Life Pro-gram is designed to get students thinking about their career paths and get their feet wet in the industries that interest them most. The program matches students exploring their options with volunteer alumni sponsors for a one-day shadow program.

The application-based program is targeted at sophomores but open to other class years. Career Services tries to include as many industries and geographies as pos-sible, opening up opportunities to as many students as they can.

“The experiences have been great; it enables a student to get a real picture of what a day in a ca-reer path will be, to delve a little deeper into needed skills and dif-ferent options within industries,” Alumni Engagement Coordinator Kim George said.

Junior Mallory Rowley took part in the program last year at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medi-cal Center in Boston, MA, hosted by Ken Sands ’81. Sands oversees the Infectious Disease Depart-ment of the center, and Rowley was able to sit in on his meetings and partake in discussions with other healthcare providers and administrators. She toured the trauma and psychology units and worked in both of the medical center’s two campuses in the heart of Boston. She also took part in a two-hour training session for the center’s medical students.”Once a week, the heads of every depart-ment come together and meet about issues brought up. I got to sit in on that meeting. They talked about the policy about family members allowed to operate on other fam-ily members, they asked me my opinion and they wanted an outside perspective. I felt very part of it,” Rowley said.

Rowley is a molecular biology major, but is not sure if she wants her career path to be health administration or something entirely different.

“Part of me loves creative writing and working in the film industry; it’s my minor, maybe double major. I’m not entirely sure if I’m even going into the health field. I might try to do something this break because the timing of last break was hard to fit everything in. Its my life dilemma right now – I have two different interests” Rowley said.

She hopes that the Day in the Life program will help her decide which career path to take.

Senior Thea Traff knew exactly what she wanted to do when she applied for the program.

“I knew I wanted to do photography, but I had a few other options. Go for something even if it’s not for sure what you want to do. Figuring it out is what the experience is about,” Traff said.

Traff originally planned to spend a day and a half at Getty Images in New York City, but ended up spending the following week there, as well. She credits her alumni hosts, Christina Cahill ’85 and Jamie Herrmann ’10, for her experience and extended stay at the company.

“The best part was the connection with Christina and Jamie and how appreciative I was to have so much of their time. I know what I want to do now. Now they are just my mentors throughout the whole job pro-cess. I got coffee with them and they got me lunch after working on Friday, then I went in the whole next week following those two days, and I am meeting up with Christina in New York next week,” Traff said.

Senior Tyler Danielsen missed out on the opportunity his sophomore year and was not about to let it pass him by again as a junior. He spent his day with alumni Michael Re-mey ’98, who is a financial advisor and CFP at UBS Financial Services, Inc.

“I chose the finance industry because I knew that it was definitely an industry I was interested in, but I was not 100 percent sure that it was the industry I wanted to pursue a career in. I figured that the Day in the Life program would give me the best insight into what this industry entails,” Danielsen said.

Remey set up a schedule for Danielsen that included several meetings with other corpora-tions so that he could learn about a wide variety of fields within business. Remey met with Dan-ielsen at the end of the day to discuss ways in which he would go about pursuing his career.

“It was a great way to see exactly what happens in this section of the finance in-dustry. The meetings that Mr. Remey set up for me in other industries were just an additional bonus. Being able to experience the everyday tasks of three different indus-tries was a privilege, and certainly helped me understand the future that I wanted to pursue. I highly recommend this program to everyone, regardless of whether or not you think you already know what career path you plan to take. It was certainly one of my best and most influential experiences at Colgate,” Danielsen said.

Participants tend to keep in touch with their Alumni sponsors, some acting as mentors and advisors for the students’ future careers.

“The program is really a reflection of how strong the alumni connection is at Colgate and how willing they are to help,” Traff said.

Contact Caroline Main at [email protected]