New mentoring program helps guide graduate students

When Ohio State industrial and systems engineering master’s student Jessica Griffin was unsure of which career path to pursue after graduation, she turned to an alumna who is a professional engineer for advice.

Griffin is one of more than 60 graduate students who are benefiting from the College of Engineering’s new Graduate Student Alumni and Peer Mentoring Program (GUIDE). Launched in fall 2021, the program pairs current engineering graduate students with alumni who earned advanced degrees, and can offer career and professional assistance.

“At the beginning of the year, I wasn't 100% certain which career path I was going to follow. I was interested in consulting, but I didn’t have any friends that went into it. I was hoping an alumni mentor could talk to me about what they and their friends have chosen to do and if they felt like it was a good choice,” Griffin said. “My mentor was great. It ended up being exactly what I needed to help me make a career decision.”

GUIDE also matched 140 first-year engineering graduate students with experienced peer mentors who provide personal and professional support as they begin their advanced degree programs.

The program is the brainchild of Associate Dean of Graduate Programs La’Tonia Stiner-Jones, as part of her focus on improving student retention.

“I know firsthand that graduate school can be tough. These programs provide entering graduate students the opportunity to connect with current graduate students and learn from their wisdom and experience, and that of our graduate alumni. The goal is to help make the transition smoother and provide important insights into career opportunities and how to prepare,” Stiner-Jones explained. “The mentoring program is part of a multilayered retention strategy that helps to reinforce that even though graduate school can be tough, students will get through it, here’s how and here are the opportunities that lie ahead.”

Thanks to an enthusiastic response from alumni, every student who signed up for the program was matched with a mentor.

“GUIDE wouldn’t be possible without the tremendous support of our alumni,” said Graduate Recruitment and Support Director Nina Parshall who coordinates the program. “Because of their commitment, we had more than enough alumni mentors for this year, and good diversity of program and industry representation.”

For year two, Parshall hopes to broaden the program’s reach to enable every student mentee to connect with an alum who works in the industry they are most interested in. Achieving that will require recruiting more alumni volunteers from the medical and health fields, including those who work in biomechanics and the pharmaceutical industry.

Industrial and systems engineering alumna Andrea Lin ’19, ’20 is one of 63 alumni who answered the call for volunteers. She was matched with Jessica Griffin.

“It’s a good opportunity to see what the younger classes are working on, what they're interested in and guide them in any way I can,” explained Lin, who is a mechanical engineer for Raytheon in Texas. “Plus, it's another opportunity to give back, because I really enjoyed my time at Ohio State and I want to help out.”

Lin also noted that the benefits of mentoring go both ways, “It's a bit of a two-way street. Not only am I supporting her, but talking to Jessica has helped show me a different perspective on career and life path progression.”

First-year student Jordin Marshall has also found the GUIDE program helpful. After moving to Ohio State last spring from Alabama to pursue a PhD in biomedical engineering, she was matched with biomedical engineering PhD candidate Jordan Moore. Moore has been a valuable resource, Marshall said, helping her with everything from how to use lab equipment to writing her first research grant proposal.

“I'm one of the lucky ones. My peer mentor and I work in the same building on the same floor, so I see him every day,” Marshall said. “There’s no need to wait and schedule a meeting or anything. That's super convenient. They did a really great job with matching students with mentors.”

Marshall strongly recommends the GUIDE program to future incoming graduate students, especially those who earned their bachelor’s degree at another school.

“I’m enjoying it,” she said. “Not coming from Ohio State previously, [being in GUIDE] helped out a lot. I would definitely recommend it to new students.”

Plans for the second year of GUIDE are underway. Alumni who earned engineering graduate degrees at Ohio State and current graduate students who are interested in serving as mentors can visit the program website to learn more and sign up to volunteer.

“We invite alumni from around the world to participate,” Parshall said. “We have a lot of international students who would probably love to connect with someone who went back to their home country to find employment or who stayed here and navigated the process of getting sponsorship.”

Make a gift to the College of Engineering Graduate Student Fellowship Fund to support GUIDE, fellowships and other graduate student success initiatives.

by Candi Clevenger, College of Engineering Communications, clevenger.87@osu.edu