Retreat

Description of the video:

MATT RUST: I have some external perspectives joining us. We have some community partners and some of our employer partners who hire students at interns or into full-time roles. We'll be sharing some insights into what they think of the profiles and what it might mean out there in the real world outside of our real world where we work.

So my name is Matt Rust. I serve as Assistant Dean for University College here at IUPUI. And I just vacated a role where I've been leading career services and academic advising initiatives for the campus, including serving as a front door for employers looking to recruit IUPUI talent.

So we've done a lot with employers in that work, and we're excited to see some of the current reactions to the profiles we have today. So if you wouldn't mind, maybe Tabitha, we could start with you and just have you go ahead and introduce yourself. And Tabitha, not an external [LAUGHS] panel member here. But yeah, tell us a little bit about your role and how you interface with IUPUI today.

TABITHA HARDY: Sure. Thank you. I'm so excited to see you guys and be here in 3D and in person. I'm Tabitha Hardy, and I'm the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Graduate Education and the Assistant Dean for Student Development and Academic Affairs here at IUPUI.

So when I describe my role, I say I do all the things graduate student. Graduate and professional students are our focus. And we also recruit and work with a lot of our programs with undergraduate students as well, preparing them for their next step. So I was really excited to be a part of this panel and thinking about how this could be utilized to prepare our students for graduate professional education.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Tab. Bryan?

BRYAN KRYDER: Good. morning. Bryan Kryder, Co-Founder of RightHand. We're a marketing agency in Fountain Square. I am a part of this mainly because a couple of things. I'm an alumni. I'm a proud Kelley School of Business marketing grad. Also, I co-teach capstone class 432 in sports management. And so this is a unique opportunity for me to see both sides.

As an employer, I'm out hiring people, trying to hire people right here. It's really hard. But also on the capstone side is seeing them-- that's kind of one of their last touchpoints before they start going out here. And so really want them-- this has been really helpful to see these profiles on really how I can help on both sides. So excited to be here today, and thanks for having me.

MATT RUST: Thanks very much. Danielle?

DANIELLE CHAMBLISS: Good morning. My name is Danielle Chambliss. I work with Geico as the Regional Sales and Service Director. So we are an employer partner. So I'm very interested to see exactly what we are-- we partner with this, with the organization, but we're looking to see exactly how we can bring in more talent to build our leadership pipeline. So I'm very interested in learning more about the ProPass. So thank you for having us.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Danielle. Tim?

TIM SCULLY: Hi. I'm Tim Scully. I am the Intern Program Manager at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. You're looking at me like, that guy looks familiar.

[LAUGHTER]

I spent about seven years here at IUPUI, various advising and employer relations roles. Our intern program, we host about 45 to 50 students on average each year in all corners of the museum. We can accommodate pretty much any major with the exception of nursing, so I apologize if nursing is in the room.

[LAUGHTER]

Not yet, anyway. Who knows what will come in the future? We are planning to host about 57 interns next year, and I'm looking forward to partnering with you as we find those 57 students and have IUPUI students contribute to the success of the museum.

MATT RUST: And real quick brag on Tim, the children's museum is a great example of an internship done really well. Learning focus, lots of great feedback throughout the experience, and just a great cohort experience for the students. So really is one of those models that we hold up for other employers when they're calling us, saying, I don't know where to start. [LAUGHS]

TIM SCULLY: Now I know who's sending them.

MATT RUST: That's right.

[LAUGHTER]

Thanks, Tim. Brenda?

BRENDA BIGGS: Sure. Good morning. My name is Brenda Biggs. I'm Director of Community Health at Indiana University Health. So my office is actually in Methodist. I specifically work in kind of a unique space where we do community benefit, which is kind of a-- we'll say a marriage of public health and then tax and finance.

And we have a strong relationship with Fairbanks School of Public Health. We posted interns and hired graduates, and excited to be here this morning. Thank you.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Brenda. And to say that you hire our graduates is an understatement. IU Health is consistently one of the top two employers in terms of quantity of our graduates that are being hired annually since 2016 when we began drafting it, so thank you for continuing to partner there.

Well, we'd like to talk a little bit about the KSABs. That's something that we talk about in the career and employer world a lot. Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, and Behaviors. And I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about some of those most important qualities-- knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors-- that you seek when you're reviewing applicants' materials or interviewing them.

And tell us a little about how those might relate to specific roles you're interviewing for or opportunities, Tabitha, or how they might relate to any role or opportunity. And so any volunteers to kick us off here?

TABITHA HARDY: I'll volunteer.

MATT RUST: Wonderful.

[LAUGHTER]

TABITHA HARDY: So I also sit on the Admissions Committee for the Department of Biology, and reviewing a lot of applications of graduate students and folks who are just trying to think about their next step. So of course, we want to see that there is the subject knowledge, that they know their area and their particular interest. But that's like GPA and I graduated, and yay for me.

But beyond that, we want to know that they've been engaged in opportunities to build their skill sets. So have they done internships? Have they been involved in shadowing experiences? And then have they done research? Have they done any type of a research experience?

And of course, we look for folks who have positive attitudes, right? And sometimes that exudes and comes from the work that they submit. Sometimes we see that in those letters of recommendation that come from the people who submit those.

And just thinking about life right now, we need people who are open and flexible, who can do the hybrids, who can also do online, who can be in the space but who are very open and flexible to whatever is thrown at them. And I think that's safe to say that sometimes things do get thrown our way, right? [LAUGHS]

And then of course, being dependable and also being persistent. I always tell people that I didn't ever think that I was super smart, but what I was was very persistent in pursuing my goals.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Tabitha. And great point to that flexibility skill or aptitude behavior that has been in demand for quite a while. Might be even more in demand after the last few years. Great point. Good volunteer.

BRYAN KRYDER: Guess we're going down the line. You know, I think for me, one of the things that I really try to talk with students about is one of the opening remarks talking about a one and a half year old and really-- he was describing curiosity. And I know it's really hard to understand that on a resume.

But when you were talking with, where do you want to go in your career, I would personally actually kind of like when they are a little bit more curious and they are wondering where they are going to be in the industry, because I do think that it opens them up to new challenges being thrown at them.

So I think curiosity is always important. It's always important I think even being here on campus. I think looking for new opportunities that maybe aren't right in front of you and being able to go out and proactively seek those are important.

But for me, I was talking in the break. You know, something when we look at the profile, being a communicator, for me I learned communication skills when I worked retail, specifically at Kmart a long, long time ago. Many people don't know what those are, so I shouldn't really say that's a classic.

[LAUGHTER]

Because I learned to be a communicator when the mother who's looking for a toy at Christmas and I was the person that had to go back to the stockroom and say we didn't have it. You learn about conflict. You learn about communication skills.

And so what I really teach some students is all of your experiences have led you up to be who you are. And don't discount being retail-- we had a student a couple of years ago talk about he just worked at LensCrafters. And I said, you're helping people make the decision that's going to be on their face every day. So don't discredit that because if you're talking about customer service, you want someone who can talk someone through that whole process.

AUDIENCE: Hear, hear.

BRYAN KRYDER: I think that we spend so much time just looking at qualifications and not really having students pull those and put those into these profiles and really tell stories about those during the interviews. So I don't know if that answered your question.

MATT RUST: Yeah. That's great. Thanks for those examples, Bryan. And that's fresh on our mind, that idea of incoming freshmen having just been through Bridge Week. So many of them are discounting the experiences they've had so far. And that's a common tactic in our Office of Student Employment, is helping them better articulate the fact that even in those retail, those fast food jobs, you have done some really important work that is going to be translatable to your next opportunity. Danielle, Tim?

DANIELLE CHAMBLISS: Right. So I really follow the sentiments of both Tabitha and Bryan. So when we talk about what we look for in a call center-- so most often when we get our-- this is an entry-level job, so we get a recent college graduate. The things that stand out the most are communication skills, definitely. I mean, there's often presentations where you're telling a story about your results and helping anyone in the room understand that progress has been made.

We actually like a lot of-- we like athletes. [LAUGHS] And what we find in athletes are just that competitiveness, their ability to pull together a team for one goal. So leadership organizations that our future associates participate in, whether it be fraternities or business organizations, sororities. Whatever that is, that seems to translate very well in our environment.

Another thing is we look for innovation. So Geico has been in business over 86 years, and we have a lot of tenure. And a lot of our top officers are our C-suite. It's a very tenured staff.

So when we get our interns in and they show us all of these bright things and just forward thinking that they learned inside their business school. That is amazing for us because it pushes us out of our comfort zone and helps us see things from their lens.

And so that's what we want. We want that innovative thinking. We want flexibility for sure because things are ever-changing in our current world. COVID definitely shifted organizations country-wide to a different type of work. So learning how to adapt quickly and be flexible regardless of what position you're in, that's what we're looking for in our next future leaders with our company.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Danielle. And if you're keeping track of the qualities that have been mentioned so far, which I am, I've caught nine of them. So communication skills, proactivity, curiosity, flexibility or adaptability, dependability, persistence, leadership, competitiveness, and innovation. So Tim, Brenda, anything you would add to those lists that we've got so far?

TIM SCULLY: I agree with everything that everybody said. Bryan took the words out of my mouth just in terms of part-time employment, we don't require any type of experience for our internship program. But it's the students that have been out working and utilizing some of these skill sets and how they've articulated them on their resume is really what helps them shine through.

The resume is a really important tool when applying to internships, particularly those schools that require an internship. Students are putting themselves out there with the name of your school on their documents that maybe don't articulate all those skill sets.

And so they really need to kind of step back, I think, for thinking about that application process and what it is that they're showcasing. So instead of saying, I'm a great communicator, well, how have you put communicating into practice? Has it been through being a leader on a team or in a student organization? Has it been working at McDonald's?

I had a student recently who said, well, I just work at McDonald's, and that wasn't even on their resume. Everybody knows McDonald's, whether we want to admit it or not. We all know Happy Meals and we know the joy that it can bring to young kids' sad faces. For the Children's Museum we love that, right? And so not discounting the part-time experiences and ensuring that they're really articulating how they're put into practice versus just saying they have those skills is really important for us.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Tim. Brenda?

BRENDA BIGGS: I love this list. Really awesome. I would add just a couple more things to the list too. Be coachable. So I think that it doesn't matter if you're a fresh grad or you've been in the working world for 30 years. That ability to be open-minded, learn. That lifelong learner concept is really, really important.

And I would also say just cultural humility. Be, again, open-minded, knowing that you may work in a diverse group of people inside your office, outside your office. That is really important as well.

MATT RUST: All right. So to recap real quick, I heard Tim adding an exclamation point on the communication skills and the importance of articulating these qualities, and Brenda adding on to the list coachability or lifelong learning and cultural humility.

So thinking about those now sort of 11 qualities that we've brainstormed together, how do you think that those are more likely to show up in specific roles versus across all the roles or opportunities that you might be interviewing or selecting candidates for? What's sort of the balance there?

DANIELLE CHAMBLISS: Well, for me with this partnership what we're looking for are these future leaders. We are hiring for our leadership programs once we reach out. So these things that we've outlined are very important in leading a diverse group of associates. So I feel like it just goes right in line with what we're looking for and what your profiles outline.

BRYAN KRYDER: Just to add to that, I think maybe in a smaller company, I think there's a couple different approaches for hiring. I think that there's the immediate need to fill a position and then there's the developmental thing of-- the developmental side of things is, can this person develop into a leader, right? And so there's a balance of the technical things that need to get done on the day-to-day, but there's also those developmental skills or aptitude to develop so that you want them to become something later within the organization.

And so when I was at a bigger company, I used to always say regardless of the position underneath me, I was hiring my replacement. So someone that eventually could take my job, but they had the day-to-day stuff to do either as an entry level or with three to five years of experience.

So I think when you are being strategic on hiring people, it should have that balance of, can you do the job today, but can you develop into something tomorrow? And I think that's where these profiles really-- those are I guess the framework, the backbone that you could really see people developing within those skill sets.

TIM SCULLY: For us at the museum, we're very diverse in our internship offerings. As I mentioned, any major can really qualify to work with us. So it depends if you're looking at something that's working in our community initiatives team, which is working with the neighborhood around the museum, or if you're more of a technical skill set working maybe in our interactive exhibit development.

We actually had an IUPUI student in 2020 work on some graphics for our Malala exhibit, and was fortunate enough to be on a Zoom call with Malala and her father. And we do an end-of-semester showcase where we showcase what they did. She didn't even share that Malala--

[LAUGHTER]

I had to ask her. I had to probe her to do that. Malala's not talking to me.

[LAUGHTER]

How awesome of an experience was that? So it really depends on the area that you're working in, if you're more technical, you're more social work-minded, if you're more business and finance-minded. But all of the skills across the board apply to our areas, and all of those outcomes, I think, are just equally important in not only preparing you to do an internship with us, but hopefully for us to hire you post-internship.

We just hired six of our summer students to stay on with us in a variety of roles, which is great. I think two of those were IUPUI students, a Kelley student and sports management student. So there is life after the internship, we say--

[LAUGHTER]

--as long as you're able to articulate and do a great job.

TABITHA HARDY: So I think we always look for folks who have a broad skill set and who are thinking about all of these different things that we kind of mentioned. But also, you always want to think about our students being more successful than we are. And we're all in this business because we do want to see them be successful. We do want to see them put their best foot forward and do their best work and reflect great on us, our programs, and everything else.

So helping them and giving them the tool set that they need to kind of articulate that is really important. And when I think about our students now, they're all Snapchat, Instagram, and all of that, right? So putting something on a paper resume, it doesn't automatically translate that, yeah, I've had this fantastic experience, but I just worked at McDonald's, or I worked at Kmart. I worked at Kmart too.

[LAUGHTER]

So I think in our roles as instructors and facilitators to help them out in those ways and just kind of helping them articulate that is really important as well.

BRENDA BIGGS: Yeah. So I would agree with all that. I think in general, kind of distilling down-- everything comes down to communication. So whether it's kind of a root cause of challenges or issues, communication. Or a root cause of great success, communication. So really, we always look for good communicators, and we all can improve on that.

MATT RUST: Yeah. Thanks for all those perspectives. So in general, I'm hearing that for the most part you're looking for qualities that would transcend not just the role they're currently interviewing for, right? But a variety of opportunities that you might be hiring for. Your own role. I like that concept, Bryan. And Tabitha also mentioned future leadership opportunities. You're interviewing them for those now and hoping that they'll be-- you'll be able to help coach them along toward that in the future.

Shifting gears a little bit, let's hear some advice that you have for us. So what advice do you have for us as faculty and staff who want to better prepare our graduates to articulate those qualities that you just mentioned? So Tim already alluded to the importance of the resume, right? But what advice would you have for us in making sure that we're better preparing students to do that articulating?

BRYAN KRYDER: I'll say a scary word to higher ed, LinkedIn.

[LAUGHTER]

It is very important. I mean, especially if you think about, how can students kind of journal or put their experiences in a way that they don't forget about it that they did something two years ago? And they can put it out there on LinkedIn as opposed-- just an update.

It isn't as scary as the TikToks and the Instagrams, but it is the way that professionals communicate. And there is an etiquette. There are things that people need to learn and how to use it. And I do think that higher educations struggle with it at times because it's not a traditional way y'all speak.

But I do think it's really important to brag about Dr. Pierce. He's really gotten engaged in LinkedIn, and it's really opened up a lot of community partnerships for him. And now he extends that to his students.

So I know it's kind of uncomfortable. I know it's probably not what a lot of educators have kind of normally done. But I think understanding that platform and how students can quickly put things into their LinkedIn profile to show the body of work is really important. And it really kind of even stands out sometimes more than a resume. That's where I go. I'm going to just go through someone's LinkedIn page.

I know Amy Vaughan, her program, she's actually done stuff through the internship program where they put their assignments, and so that's how they post their assignments is through LinkedIn. So getting creative with that tool and that platform I think is really important because that's what industry is checking out.

MATT RUST: Yeah, a great point. It's not enough for us to just be having the students create a profile, which has sort of been the standard default practice when we're doing this sort of career services work. But helping them understand that this is your portfolio, and there's also an etiquette to how you're communicating on this platform that they need to understand that's different from other social media. Other advice?

BRENDA BIGGS: So I would just add, I think thinking beyond the rubric that-- problem solving. I think what I've seen in some of my younger team members since they want exactly what the answer to the test is of life, and--

[LAUGHTER]

--as we all know, there is no rubric for life. So I think just that problem solving, the critical thinking. Again, the communication. And while it's important to have a framework, what does success look like? Interacting in a classroom is going to be a little bit maybe different than in the office setting. But that would be my advice is kind of that, think beyond the rubric for the students.

MATT RUST: Interesting. So maybe we could translate that into workshops or role play where students are giving examples in an interview of times when they were thrown off balance and they didn't have a clear set of, I know what the answer is going to be here, and I'm going to try to feel that out.

BRYAN KRYDER: Can I add something to that? I think the other thing too is even assignments. So many times we think about assignments as pass, fail, or there's a grade, and then we move on.

I think in the real world, feedback loops are really important to further development. So even looking at the way we've restructured the capstone class is that the assignments that you work on really build on for the next one. So they turn it in, they get a quote, unquote, "grade," but then they get corrections.

And so they have to work on those corrections and bring them back. So then we have a new starting point. And I think that's really how the real world works when you have an assignment or you have a project. There's iterations.

So thinking about your assignments to build upon as opposed to just move on and you kind of forget that. You can apply it later. And what did you learn from this is incident that you can apply for something else down the road is really how we learn once you get to the real world. So just even thinking about how you potentially look at the structure of your syllabus, and maybe put some of that feedback in so that they can apply that later in the class.

MATT RUST: Great points.

TIM SCULLY: I would just challenge you to have an assignment that gets the students out of the confines of the classroom, whether that's visiting the Children's Museum of Indianapolis--

[LAUGHTER]

--or even just interviewing a professional or having coffee with them to learn and network and reflect on that I think is really valuable. As an undergrad, I took the public speaking class. But in that class we had to do an assignment in a group where we went out and did the service in the community, and we had to work together to find a site, coordinate a time. It sounds basic, but it's really hard to work on all those logistics as a group together. And then at the end we did a group presentation on our experience.

I remember that from a while ago as a great lesson in being able to work with others. That helps build your cultural way of working with others. It helps improve leadership skills. Going back to all these profiles, it really helps undergraduates. And then thinking about LinkedIn, Kathy Johnson reached out to me on LinkedIn to present today.

AUDIENCE: Very clumsily.

[LAUGHTER]

TIM SCULLY: It was lovely. But--

BRYAN KRYDER: Then she survived.

[LAUGHTER]

TIM SCULLY: But I as a recruiter and other recruiters, we don't go to Facebook anymore. That used to be, like, who is this? I'm going to try and find dirt on them. We want to find the good things about the candidate, and LinkedIn can really do that. If they don't have a presence on LinkedIn, it is challenging to help get a better sense of the candidate, particularly if their resume isn't as strong than other candidates that we're seeing. So definitely agree with all those comments as well.

DANIELLE CHAMBLISS: From my perspective, what I find often is when students are recent graduates, they are attacking the world. They feel like everything is going to happen right now, and is a success.

And so the things that I find most often challenging is helping them be able to be comfortable in the now, right? So you have to kind of work things out, put in some time, understand the context before you can be elevated to another position.

So being comfortable in their weakness. They're not able to often communicate what their weaknesses are. And everybody has weaknesses. No one is perfect. So teaching them how to understand what their weaknesses are and translate that to how it is basically the back side of their strengths, and helping them embrace that.

Another thing that I've found helpful is when we were presenting our we were thinking through our business problem, not showing me everything that you believe is right, but presenting from the angle of, what could go wrong? Because that's what we don't often think about. What are we missing in this presentation that could help us other part of it?

Because what we're doing now, we centralized all of our functions. So it's not just one person owning the customer service side of the house. You could be working with our claims side of the house as well. So teaching the associates, our future employees how to think about things holistically and how we can affect every part of the organization, that has been most helpful for us.

MATT RUST: Great. Thinking beyond the rubric, which I think goes along with what Danielle mentioned about helping students view their work as something that is building, right? When we use a rubric, a lot of times that seems to shut down the growth, right? It's just this summative evaluation of what is as opposed to viewing it as an iterative process like Bryan mentioned where you're going to get feedback in the real world and you're going to keep developing.

Tim's advice about embedding the signs to get students out of the classroom or talking to a professional, great skill set. The ability to communicate professionally and practice that when there's nothing on the line other than just talking to someone over coffee. Practicing presenting what could go wrong, I like that. So bringing up not just the strengths of what you all had produced as a group project, but also pointing out where the current weaknesses are with what you've developed.

And then lastly, just any opportunity to communicate things about themselves. It's always hardest to talk about ourselves in concrete terms. And a lot of us tend to downplay things that we've actually accomplished or obstacles we've overcome. So giving students that opportunity, that permission to talk about themselves in that positive light.

Shifting gears to our final question here, tell us a little bit about how our profiles relate to some of these durable skills that we've been talking about. So durable skills is kind of the new language for talking about transferable skills. It's this idea that these are skills that will be with you in the long run.

And I'm curious what feedback you would give to us on whether the profiles are doing a decent job of capturing some of those 11 durable skills that you all identified earlier, and how those help in both career and personal lives for our students. What do you think?

TIM SCULLY: I'll jump in. I'm not sure if I'm going to fully answer the question. But advice I give students lately is in a post-pandemic world, you have to do something that's going to bring you joy and happiness. Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah. And I think that means a lot of different things for different people. And I think it's also really important that students are themselves in an interview, not putting up a facade of answering questions in the way that they think the interviewer might want them to answer or providing overly rehearsed answers. You know, I think it's equally as important as all of those durable skills.

But to go back to the articulating, if they've not had concrete examples of how they've been able to put things into practice, it's hard for us to say, how are you going to be a good intern or future employee for us? Our internship can provide those concrete examples, but if in the interview and selection process we're weighing two candidates and one is, I'm a great communicator and I've done that through leading a group project versus someone that's saying, I communicate very well, I'm working on X, Y, and Z and improving in that dreaded strengths and weaknesses question, which we do ask.

[LAUGHTER]

So I think this is really important to go back to the assignment piece. They've had the experience of being able to put these into practice. They've reflected and they're able to articulate those through the class assignment and through experiences, whether that be out of the classroom and a student or even off campus in a part-time job. I think that's just really important. And the students that are able to do that are the ones that shine through versus those that are not.

I also have brochures that I'll leave out on the podium or there. If there are any left, whoever is maybe last to leave, if you could just maybe make their way to the Student Employment Office, that would be lovely. It's a beautiful brochure. If you take a look inside, there's a photo of someone that looks familiar.

[LAUGHTER]

Thank you.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Tim. So what I'm hearing from you is that the profiles probably do a decent job of capturing the durable skills you value, but they're only so good as they are in terms of how students are able to articulate concrete examples, right? Don't just tell us you're a communicator. Show us specific examples where you've had to practice that.

BRENDA BIGGS: Yeah. So I'll add, I think it's a great framework that really gives the students-- again, going back to my rubric comment. [LAUGHS] Instead of precisely what they need to do, there's a lot of ability for them to be their best selves at work and try to figure out what that means to them no matter what field they want to go into.

So I think they're actually spot on. And I can see things evolving, right? There's a lot of opportunity there as I think society evolves. It's a really great framework.

BRYAN KRYDER: To build on that a little bit, I mean, when I looked at those profiles, I just broadly thought, these are the people I want to be hanging out with, right? Not necessarily hiring. I mean, yes, hiring.

But think about in our community. And we've touched on it too. This is much bigger than just from an employment standpoint. But there's a kind of a saying. There's two types of people you want to talk for-- talk at parties, right? People who are perfect and have to have everything right and the people who are interesting. And if you have to be perfect, you have to be perfect all the time. But if you have to be interesting, it's a lot easier to be interesting because you can pull from all these different things.

And so I am more of the interesting person because I don't know-- I always get my facts wrong. But I think there's an element of, these are the types of people not only who will be good jobs, but these are going to be people who are going to serve on boards. They're going to be a part of communities from parent-teacher conferences. These are the people that we really want in our community to build our community for what it's going to be.

So I look at this as being much broader than just from the tactical side of how to get a job. It's really like, these are the-- you're preparing the Indianapolis community, Central Indiana where a lot of these grads from IUPUI go. So that's why I think it's really important as well.

MATT RUST: Great. So much more than just employability skills. These are life skills that'll make you a great member of a community.

TABITHA HARDY: Yeah, and I think that's really true. I like to self-identify as a problem solver and an innovator, but those are transferable skills, right? So my training and my schoolwork was in microbiology and immunology. All my science is by training.

However, the work I do now is far from a lab. It's not in the lab. But it still involves problem solving on a daily basis. It still involves being innovative and collaborating with people often to come up with creative solutions. So I think utilizing and having those transferable skills and teaching our students and articulating those could be useful regardless of what role they see themselves in, and also what role that they may eventually end up in.

DANIELLE CHAMBLISS: So I would agree with what everyone said on the panel. When I looked at the profiles, they are everything that we look for in our future leaders with the organization. When we think about communicating, I've given you guys examples about that. And problem solving on the back side of that.

Also thinking through how to lead change, right? Because there's a lot of things happening in our current world, but you have to learn how to embrace change and be able to communicate it effectively to your direct reports. When I think about innovation, I've given you guys examples about that as well, how important that is in our current world.

And last but not least, a community contributor. Everyone wants to have a great representation in the community that they live in. And so we are very big on making sure that we give back to the community in which we are housed. And so we meet our leaders who are brought on to have that much enthusiasm as well to make a change in basically what we are bringing into our workforce. And so I feel like the profiles embody everything that we look for in a leader.

MATT RUST: Great. Well, we've got just a few minutes here for concluding thoughts. So if there was some really important piece of advice or insight that you were hoping to get across that hasn't come out yet or that you just want to reemphasize, I wonder what that might be? So any volunteer to kick us off? Concluding thoughts?

DANIELLE CHAMBLISS: Well, I'll kick us off because-- so I am from Geico, but two of our college recruiters are here, and they asked me to sit up because I'm very vocal about what we need from IU. And so we are a partner with the business school, but what we are figuring or what we are asking for are for more of our interns to come from this school that we partner with. We believe that you guys have a very strong base and would be more successful leaders brought in from our communities in which we are basically finding. We want that because we see something good.

So if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to come and sit in with the business school, give examples, whatever you need. But we would like more support for our interns coming up next year from the business school, please.

MATT RUST: Thanks, Danielle. And by the way, I didn't mention it earlier, but Geico is regularly in our top 15 employers every year. So you might be surprised to hear that, but yeah, a ton of our graduates--

DANIELLE CHAMBLISS: Yes. We need it. We love our undergrads and here you guys are. Bring them on.

BRYAN KRYDER: Something that we didn't touch on specifically is the word empathy. I think that's really important, especially as we've gone through so much in the last couple years, just thinking about-- so trying to empathize with your students, but even teaching that to them and helping them understand how empathy is so important, and from being a good colleague to work with them.

One, to understand that what they're bringing to work is sometimes-- it's unknown. So they may be showing up to work-- they may be showing up to class with a lot more things that we don't know. So I think just as leaders and people that are influencing our communities, the word empathy and grace are two words that we've really stressed in the last couple years because I think it's hard for us as leaders to forget all the things that we've learned and put ourselves into students' shoes because it's like, of course it makes sense to--

I networked with someone the other day who's a recent grad from Bloomington, and she showed up in workout gear. And so she had just come from the gym and she was networking with me. Now I just-- I tried to empathize. I just didn't quite understand that. So again, we have a lot of different things that are going on in our lives. But I think as leaders, we should be leading that from a place of empathy and grace.

TIM SCULLY: If you have a class that overlaps with the time of a career fair, take your class to the career fair. I know that sounds basic in nature, but I hear from students that they weren't able to get to the career fair because their professor wouldn't let them leave class.

Not lecturing you on telling you how to teach, but we as some of us that do recruiting, we invest the money to come and spend our time to be at the career fair talking to students. We want to talk to as many students as possible. So you can break down many barriers in helping students prepare to get to that fair. And even just walking them over there as a class, we would all love that.

And then maybe have an assignment that helps them reflect, who did you talk to? What did you learn from that? How are you going to apply this into your learning in my course? Or anything like that. I think those are all things that are valuable connections that at the end of the day will really help us to think about what they're doing as an undergrad.

Whether they're early or late or maybe too late to the career fair party, it's really important that they have those experiences so they're not graduated and showing up in workout gear and thinking, well, no one told me that when I go to network I shouldn't do that, or I don't know who's hiring. I don't even know who the top hiring employers are, right? So anything that you can do to reinforce that enforces the message of the recruiter and really helps the student help get out there and make valuable connections that will help them post-graduation and maybe even into graduate school later on.

MATT RUST: fallcareerweek.iu.edu--

[LAUGHTER]

--if you're looking to plan ahead for those opportunities.

TIM SCULLY: And just as-- I'm very happy with things resuming in person. And if you want any of us as recruiters to come to a class or talk about those things, very happy to do that if I'm available. If you'd like to come over to the Museum-- I was talking to Suzann Lupton about maybe her career and advising staff to come over to the Museum to see an exhibit. Very happy to do that as time allows, so please reach out and let us know.

MATT RUST: Thanks for mentioning that, Tim. You might have heard that employers weren't coming to career fairs anymore, and that might have been true a year ago. Last spring, though, we were back to large waiting lists for all of our career fairs. If we had the space, we could have brought in more. So yeah, take advantage of those. Other bits of advice or a final thought here?

BRENDA BIGGS: So I'll just jump in and say I think flexibility and active listening skills are also very, very important. Again, communication, so important. I know I keep underscoring that. But those two things are super important as well, the flexibility and active listening skills.

TABITHA HARDY: Yeah, I'll be brief and I think just saying helping our students understand what their options are, whether it is being an undergrad, going directly to a workforce or a job, or if it's a graduate professional program. Some will understand that you do have options. Your degree can take you here. It can take you there. And helping them to achieve and attain themselves.

MATT RUST: Well, thank you, panelists, for sharing your expertise and insights for today. Let's give them a round of applause.

[APPLAUSE]

Description of the video:

MARGIE: Next up, we have a panel of our students, representing the students' vision, and view, and experience of the profiles. Kristy Sheeler is going to moderate this panel, and I'll let her take it away. Thank you.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thank you, Margie. We have seven incredible IUPUI students with us today, who have agreed to share some of their experiences around learning, and the profiles, in the classroom, outside of the classroom. And these are incredibly accomplished students. You're going to love hearing from them.


We have a range of majors, a range of years at IUPUI, from freshman to graduate students, so I'm excited to hear what they have to say. First, I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about who they are, what they're studying, and anything else they want to mention about their work at IUPUI. Jalen will get us started.


JALEN PULLINGS: Hello, everyone. My name is Jalen Pullings. I am a junior, studying accounting and finance at the Kelley School of Business. Other than that, I am involved in a lot of organizations. I'm a peer mentor for DEAP, as well as FYS for OTEAM. As well as, I am the Keeper of Exchequer for the Lambda chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated.


SALONI DIXON: Hi, my name is Saloni Dixon. I am a biomedical informatics undergraduate student. I'm with the School of Informatics and Computing, and I am a junior. A little of what I'm involved in on campus, it's pretty wide. I am the president of the Filipino Student Association for the second time this upcoming academic year, as well as a SOIC student ambassador, and a social justice scholar. I also work as a stem cell lab assistant at the IU Med School, as well as conducting my own research on campus as an IUPUI STEM scholar.


FERNANDA ALONSO: Hello, everyone. I'm Fernanda. I'm now a graduate student. I'm majoring in human computer interaction. I just graduated from IUPUI in May, from Herron, with my BFA in visual communications design. In my undergrad, I was very involved on campus.


I was part of the OTEAM, IPMP, which is the International Peer Mentoring Program. I tried to stay involved as much as possible, trying to make connections and just contribute to IUPUI. I'm also a graphic designer in the Office of Communications. I've been there for a little over two years now, and I actually designed these slides for today.


[APPLAUSE]


Thank you.


SAFIA SHAKIL: Hello, everyone. My name is Safia Shakil. I'm a senior in biomedical engineering at the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology. I've done research through IU School of Medicine for the past two years. I've completed two different projects. One was through the IU Simon Cancer Center, and one at the biochemistry and molecular biology department at IU School of Medicine.


This year, I've been interning. I started interning in the industry aspect of my degree for this summer and continuing into the fall semester. I've served as the president for Biomedical Engineering Society, and the vice president for Society of Women Engineers.


GRACIE LYONS: Hi, my name is Gracie Lyons. I'm a junior, studying psychology, at Purdue School of Science. I'm an intern for the Office of Sustainability, and in that position, I have helped create the Green Travel Guide. I'm also a teaching assistant for Dr. Shenan Kroupa in her Lifespan Development course.


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: Hi, everyone. My name is Tianna Roundtree. I am a health science major in the School of Health and Human Sciences. I'm a senior. I primarily work in the office of-- sorry-- Institute for Engaged Learning. I work very closely with the Jaguar Leadership Network program. I'm actually a recent graduate of that program. I graduated as a junior.


FAITH ODIETE: Hi, everyone. This is my first year at IUPUI, but my third year in college. I'm a member of the United States Army Reserves, and I'm a cadet here at IUPUI. Even though this is just my first year at IUPUI, I've been involved in so many things for the last couple of months. I've been involved every day with the Bonner Leaders Scholarship, the Norman Brown, and the Honors College, all contributing towards making the community better. And I look forward to so much IUPUI has to offer me.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thanks, everyone. I think you agree that we've got some pretty amazing students up here in front of us.


[APPLAUSE]


You get round of applause after just your introduction. Oh my goodness! All right! And I hope you noticed that some of these students are also featured in the slides as they move by. Let's get started with our first question.


LESLIE: The last student's name.


KRISTY SHEELER: I'm sorry.


LESLIE: The last student's name.


FAITH ODIETE: Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Faith.


LESLIE: Thank you.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thank you, Leslie. So we have-- let me see if I can do this-- Jalen, Saloni, Fernanda, Safia, Gracie, Tianna, and Faith. Let's get started. The first thing I'd like you to do is share one experience in which you had an opportunity to develop your learning in one of the profiles. This could be a classroom experience.


It could be an engaged learning experience outside the classroom. It could be in one of the many clubs or organizations that you're involved in. And as an aside, I was mentioning this to the students previously, but in the employer panel that we just witnessed, they all emphasized how important it is that students can articulate those learning experiences in specific ways. No pressure or anything. Jalen, you want to kick this off?


JALEN PULLINGS: Sure. I would say the biggest experience for me to develop as a communicator would be being a peer mentor I'm going into my second year for DEAP. If you're not familiar with DEAP, DEAP is in Taylor Hall. DEAP stands for Diversity Enrichment and Achievement Program. It's a program really catered to help minorities make their transition from high school to college.


I would say having a wide variety of mentees. I started with around 13 last year. By the end of the year, I had 17 mentees, and they're all freshmen. Being able-- just to really be able to articulate what I need from them, or what they need from me. I really learned that skill, because everybody's different. I have to learn how to speak to you. I have to learn what really works for you. What's best, or what advice you can really benefit from me.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thanks, Jalen. Who wants to jump in next? We can go down the line, or you can jump in as you will.


SAFIA SHAKIL: I can go. I would also have to say communication was one of the skills that I developed. For me, my research has been one of the most critical experiences of my undergraduate experience. I've learned how to articulate my work to people of various levels within STEM. As an undergraduate researcher, you're working under a mentor who has done that work for a large period of their life.


You're also communicating that science with your peers who are at the same level of understanding as you. But then, also, oftentimes, communicating that work to family members who may not have that STEM background and therefore not understand the work to the same extent. To be able to articulate my work to all these different people and have them comprehend truly what I'm doing was really amazing.


I saw that transition when I moved from the academia aspect of research into the industry. Because part of that whole communication skills is also learning and understanding your own work, and knowing when to ask for help. And being able to voice that appropriately, so that you can get whatever you desired and needed to move forward. I would say that communication through research, through internship, has really helped me grow as an individual.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thanks, Safia. Faith.


FAITH ODIETE: My experience has been outside of the classroom. Being in the army has given me the instinct of, you put the people first before you. And the profile I would say is community contributor. Because not many people are willing to offer to the community. Most people are after what the community wants to give to them.


There are minimum people that are out here trying to make the community better, and that is one thing that I try to bring to IUPUI. The community down here is willing to make-- the society, and everybody, the resources that are being provided-- to make one a better person. That has really been huge for me. The part of the profile I would say for me is the community contributor. Always putting yourself out there. Always volunteering for things. Always making sure other people are OK.


KRISTY SHEELER: If I could interject-- sorry, Tianna. Faith, you told me a story when we first met about why you chose IUPUI. You're a first-year student here. Do you remember what you said? Would you want to share that?


FAITH ODIETE: Oh, yes, I did. I did tell her, when it comes to choosing colleges-- I'm from Africa. I just moved here a couple of years ago. I didn't know anything. I'm brand-new here. I started talking to people. I talked to alumnis. I talked to Jill-- I don't know if anybody know her-- the division chief for IUPD. She connected me to a bunch of people.


And just hearing from other people, and hearing the resources that IUPUI has, and what they can offer, the community, that's what prompted me to apply to the Bonner Leaders, to Honors College, to Norman Brown. Because all these communities at IUPUI, they are giving back to the community. They are making sure it's not just about the academic part of it. Because at the end of the day, that's what makes everybody fulfilled; living in this world, knowing you've done something to help somebody else.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thank you, Faith. Tianna, I interrupted you.


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: Oh! No, I was just moving the mic, but I can go next.


[LAUGHTER]


I have to share here. One of the most impactful experiences that I've had is my work with the Jaguar Leadership Network program. I work primarily with Kim Cozzi, the coordinator for that program. She oftentimes just hands me tasks and is like, here, can you complete this? And through those tasks, I really touch on all four of the profiles.


I'll have to create a program. Then I'll have to like, how is this going to help students? And then-- I'm sorry, excuse me, I lost my train of thought-- I will have to design slides and flyers for this program. Then I'll have to create tests or quizzes that go with the program. And this program is going to last longer than I will be here, so I feel it touches on each one of the four profiles.


GRACIE LYONS: In my internship, oftentimes I am handling raw data from anywhere within the Sustainable Development Goals. A lot of the times-- if you've dealt with anything in sustainability, a lot of the times, the answer does not come to you immediately. So being able to flex my creativity and just create any type of solution that works.


I work along with Jessica Davis, who is so passionate about her career, if you've ever met her. She has been a very, very great mentor to me. Being able to go to her with these problems and be like, I think I figured it out. And just watching her talk with you about these solutions and see her light up, it's been a great experience.


KRISTY SHEELER: Fernanda, or someone?


FERNANDA ALONSO: Yes, I can go next. I would also say that I relate to all four profiles in different perspectives. I think it's a good thing that I can grab from everything and apply that not only in my academics, but also in my career field. Mostly, I would say, the community contributor was a big part of my undergrad.


Looking back, I was so involved with being a mentor. And having that mentor-mentee relationship, and being able to help others like incoming student or transfer students, to be involved on campus and step outside of their comfort zone. Because for me, looking back as a freshman, I was super introverted. I was very quiet and reserved. I felt I was missing something.


I would see my peers around me hanging out with each other after classes, or having group studies and things that. I felt I was missing something, until my mentor encouraged me to be part of OTEAM. After that, so many doors opened up. I made so many connections. And I was able to help other students make those connections on their own and help them network outside of the classroom.


I remember some students, some of my students, came up to me one year and told me, thanks to you, this friend group, we're still together, we're still friends. That touched my heart, that I was able to make that impact on someone's life, just like my mentor had made that impact on my life back in my freshman year.


And through this, I was able to gain more empathy towards others from different backgrounds, both academic backgrounds and cultural backgrounds. Particularly when I was in IPMP, I met so many diverse cultures. I was able to connect with other people outside of what I was used to, coming from my own cultural background.


I feel like that was a great opportunity for me to be more culturally aware. And also apply that to my career, how I am able to find solutions to problems that I can connect to other people. I'm a designer, I come from a design background, so a lot is communicating. Being able to communicate through design and being able to figure out how I can communicate effectively and reach other people.


I'm also bilingual, so being able to contribute to other languages and be able to reach more people than if I were just to stay in my little bubble, like back in my freshman year if I was just to myself. I definitely learned a lot from being able to get these opportunities, to contribute, and make connections with other students, other faculty, and staff members. Thank you.


SALONI DIXON: Sorry, I was trying to gather my thoughts, I guess, because I connect a lot with these profiles as well, like Fernanda. The two that I feel I am the most, I guess, connected with is the innovator, and then the community contributor as well. A bunch of the community contributor first. As I said, I am the president of the Filipino Student Association.


I'm half Black and half Filipino. My background is just all over the place, but I never really had touch, I guess, with my roots. I would say the position just fell on me when I was like, oh, wow, there's a Filipino Student Association. That's so cool. I want to get involved with the community. So I went out, and I did it, and then came out as president.


[LAUGHTER]


I don't know. The last year was like, I see something in you. And I was like, all right. It was a really valuable experience for me, because I personally don't see myself as a leader, but a lot of people do. But I was able to bring a Filipino community together, which is really important for those that are just coming to IUPUI.


They're like, there's Filipinos here. There's Asians. I'm like, yeah, there is, and we're all a family. Just creating an environment where people feel safe, and they feel at home. And we can talk and be friends. That was one of my most-- still is, one of my most valuable experiences.


And then as an innovator, I specifically connect with making decisions. Last summer, I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Roper in his Down syndrome lab. They specifically work with a gene called DYRK1A. I had never had research experience before, so this was my first experience. I just went in, oh, right, let's do this. And I don't understand anything.


But that's how I am. I like to challenge myself. I like to try and gain more experiences, to learn and whatnot. The project that I worked on was about, basically, determining a relationship between this gene, DYRK1A, and its communication between the brain and bone, which for those that are in research, that has not been done before.


There's a lot of research on, for instance, the brain. And there's a lot of research on bone. But there's nothing that is out there that is creating-- that is saying, hey, there's a communication that's going on. And we're going to discover it. So just paving that new way for Down syndrome research has been very valuable for me.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thank you, Saloni. You've all already started down the path to answer this next question. I'm going to ask it anyway, but then maybe ask you to pull out the specific skills, attitudes, behaviors, that you learned from the experiences that you're mentioning. What specific skills, attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, did you learn from your experience?


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: Through that, I learned more about program planning and collaboration with her, which falls under communication. And this program, it will last longer than me, like I said. It's a community contributor.


We would go back and forth. I would present her with a draft, and she'd be like, OK, that looks good, but can you tweak this, this, and this. Then I would do it again, and so forth, until the program was complete. I feel that's really valuable, because you don't necessarily always get those skills in your classroom. I really enjoyed being able to work with her and complete tasks like that.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thanks, Tianna.


FAITH ODIETE: I'll say a big scoop for me that I've learned is actually confidence. Coming here to the United States, I had a different accent. I have a different experience. Everybody was different from me. Being involved in these community services has made me be able to communicate with other people from different backgrounds, like diversity, different ethnic groups. I've also been able to share my own cultural and ethnic background with other people from other places as well. And also learn from them as well. That's a big thing for me.


KRISTY SHEELER: Thank you, Faith. You are all so polite.


SAFIA SHAKIL: I would say one of the biggest things that I've learned is simply how to be a professional within STEM. How to be comfortable in my own curiosity. A successful, I would say, well-rounded STEM professional, or any professional for that matter, would encompass all of these four traits.


And over the experiences that I've had, whether it be my research and/or my industry experience, or just simply the leadership positions that I've had, I work with people of all backgrounds, various backgrounds. That's really helped me hone in on my own skills. How to communicate. How to innovate. How to give back to the community. And how to just leave IUPUI as a better individual than I came in as.


To have that continuous empathy. And then continue to grow as an individual and know that if I ever needed anything, I could reach out to people, or give back to the people-- having those thoughts and feelings, and just having that certainty, I'd say, with all these experiences, gives me confidence as I'm ready to leave IUPUI.


FERNANDA ALONSO: I feel like I covered this in my previous response, so I will give you another example. In my junior year, I was part of a research project for MURI, where I was a UX designer. That is the career that I'm wanting to go more into. I was able to work on this research project regarding an app that is called Easel, which is just-in-time reflection-based. I was able to contribute to that and be part of this larger project that has been present at IUPUI. It was developed by undergraduate students. It's an ongoing project.


I was able to gain that experience outside of my classes and have more of that real-world experience, how it actually looks in the industry. And be able to collaborate with other backgrounds, like engineers and programmers, and work with them and get that experience from front-end to back-end. I think that is something that I could definitely apply to my graduate program now, with that experience.


Also that connection that I made with my mentor. Thanks to him, I was-- he was also a letter of recommendation for me going into my graduate program. So definitely, that opportunity to make that connection and be able to build those relationships with your mentors, I feel it's something that I could definitely take with me. And even post, after this project, I still have connections with them and keep in touch. And continue growing from what I learned.


GRACIE LYONS: Building off of what Safia said, being comfortable with her own curiosity, I learned how to be comfortable with the idea that it's OK to fail the first couple of times. It's OK to try again. The skills that I've learned is definitely perseverance and patience. Just knowing that you have those mentors to fall back on if you need help, but being comfortable with the idea that you do have the ability to go about a certain problem and fix it in the best way that you know how. And then if that doesn't work, it's OK.


SALONI DIXON: I'm going to piggyback off of both of them, because they kind of run into what I was going to talk about. But, yeah, getting comfortable with my curiosity, but also confidence. As a Black student in STEM, I have a history of people telling me that I'm not smart, and that I can't always have questions. And just wanting to know like, oh, why does it do this. Or, for instance, with PCR, why do the bands go here, or whatnot, whatever you're running. It really did give me just a step in myself, because I lost that for a very long time.


JALEN PULLINGS: A couple skills I would say I learned, I would definitely say, the first one is, it's OK to fail. I understand. Because as a mentor, it's not a cookie-cutter thing. You can't live events for everybody's sake. Some people may need more help than others. Some people don't need your help at all. It's just a matter of, are you present when I need you.


Not knowing that, I would say a year ago today, because that was my first year mentoring. I thought it was going to be simple, easy, everybody's going to need to know XYZ, when that wasn't the case. At one point, I was failing as a mentor, because I really wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. I thought I was doing great, but I had to really sit down with myself, as well as talk to my supervisor at the time. I was like, am I doing this right? And it was a great conversation. I love working with DEAP.


As well as talking to some of my mentees at the time. I was like, OK, cool, let's start over. That also ties into being resilient. Because I didn't really want to let that interaction that I had been doing for a couple of weeks really impact the rest of my year. It had only been maybe a month, and I had from September all the way to May still, so I was like, I'm not going to let a couple weeks mess everything up for me.


I had to keep that mindset of, OK, cool, you failed here, but you can only go up. As well as, like I said, being resilient. Because some mentees, they won't talk to you like that. They don't need you. And being able to understand that, I didn't let that beat myself up to give me the mindset of, am I doing this correct still, or am I hurting them more than helping them, when in reality, I guess that everybody's different. I had to really just learn that from that experience.


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: I'm want to add something. I feel like-- you guys can all agree-- these experiences really helped us combat imposter syndrome.


SALONI DIXON: Yes.


JALEN PULLINGS: Yes.


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: Yeah. I know, I personally felt that way. But then, now, I can look back on these experiences that I've done, where I've been given this freedom to create this project and present it to people. And I can look back on this and be like, wow, I really did that. I'm worthy of being here. I am a valuable student. I'm a valuable contributor to society.


SALONI DIXON: I wanted to add on that having engaged learning outside of the classroom is just so important. Because you can take courses, and you're like, yeah, I'm learning. But when you're in an internship, or whatever program you're in, you're just putting yourself out there and building possibilities. You might have thought that-- for instance, I never thought I was a good public speaker. Look at me now! So you get there, and it works.


KRISTY SHEELER: Anyone else.


SAFIA SHAKIL: I guess just to add to the, like, fighting the imposter syndrome, we all go through that. Having that proper mentorship outside of the classroom, those people that are there, whether they're answering your questions, and just there for you and your peers, or just giving you the support to go out there and just do whatever it is that you need to do, it really helps.


I've been lucky in the sense that my research mentor, I've worked with them for the past few years. And they've been incredibly kind in teaching me everything. I also started research with minimal experience and background and I left there confident in my skills and myself as a professional. And I can say that it was truly because of their mentorship, so it really does go a long way.


KRISTY SHEELER: I started taking notes on all of the skills that our students mentioned, that connect in terms of what they've learned, related to the profiles. I lost track. I was trying to be a good moderator like Matt in our previous session. But I think so many wonderful things, curiosity, cultural competence, designing, creativity, trial and error, the freedom to fail. Do we really give our students the freedom to fail?


And then work with them, mentoring, relationships, team building, perseverance, patience, resilience. I also loved how so many of you talked about just the journey almost, that these experiences have-- and the reflection that you've done in terms of how you think of yourselves. You didn't think of yourself as a researcher, or a public speaker, or someone who belonged here, yet these experiences allowed you to do that. That's wonderful.


Again, you've started to answer the next question. I'll ask it, but then I'll throw in a different question, if you want to go in that direction as well. My next question was, why do you consider these experiences important? I think we've already started to go there. The question that I didn't ask, and I will throw that out too, in case you want to go in that direction, is, what advice would you give to prospective IUPUI students?


Why should they consider IUPUI? The opportunities that we provide. Maybe they don't know about them, the opportunities that we provide. Or think of themselves as a researcher, or think of themselves in these sorts of ways. Why was the experience important, or what advice would you give to future IUPUI students?


JALEN PULLINGS: For advice, I would be gung-ho and say, get involved as early as possible. Just because going to school and going home every day is not the ideal thing that you would want to do in college, because I feel you're not learning all the skills that you should be learning. Yes, you're passing your classes. Yes, you understand the material. But in the real world, you're going to need more than that. You need transferable skills. You need to know how to communicate, problem solve, innovate. Basically, what we're talking about here.


But another thing also, you don't know what you're good at and what you're not good at, unless you try. A good mentor, based off of conversations I've had with past mentees, as well as my mentees this year-- I was in a classroom with them for FYS and Bridge. And my Bridge community is with DEAP. I had 25 kids-- I don't want to say kids, 25 freshmen--


[LAUGHTER]


I'm so sorry. I had 25 freshmen in that class and 9 of them-- 25 of them are my mentees through FYS and OTEAM. But 9 out of that 25 are my DEAP student mentees as well. I had some that were overlapping, and I knew I was going to get all 25 to be in my DEAP-- that just wasn't going to be a problem.


But the nine that I did, when they found out I was their mentor, they were like, I'm so glad you're my mentor. We are connected to you. You're so high energy. I was like, yes, I will take my place. That was just satisfaction in-- it told me, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.


You like what you're doing, and you're also reaping the benefit of-- you're making an impact. And that's really what I want to do. That would be my advice. Just get involved, because it's really rewarding. And there's a lot that you can take away from college aside from just getting A's and B's.


SALONI DIXON: I love that you asked this question. My first thought was, honestly, just diversity. I actually got a full ride to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. That was actually my dream school, until I talked to a lot of alumni from IUPUI. Just hearing about the diversity here and the community. For instance, the success rate of students that get their degree and then transition into industry was just a lot more than a lot of other universities I compared to.


Also the scholarship opportunities. I came here not knowing about the scholarships, and that's why I am a little bit in debt, but we're going to ignore that. But telling students that there are scholarships here. And the faculty and staff, that they do care about your professional career. And it will benefit you to come here. And the community is great. And free t-shirts, awesome!


JALEN PULLINGS: The free t-shirts is real.


[LAUGHTER]


Last week, during Bridge and OTEAM, I got seven free shirts. They're all different colors. And then they had different activities outside, where they were shooting shirts out of a shirt can. I got a yellow one and a blue one. I didn't want the yellow one and I gave it to somebody else. But I got seven free shirts last week.


SALONI DIXON: So the incentive is the merchandise


FAITH ODIETE: Honestly, I'll say, why the experience was important to me, it was important for me to get out of my comfort zone. It was important for me to be open, to knowing more people, to be welcomed here as a person.


As a future IUPUI student, because it's going to be my first semester at IUPUI, I'm just going to talk about the advice I've heard from other people. It's mainly to just put yourself out there. What's the worst they can say? No. And you're going to try again. Just apply for as many things as you can. Get involved. Talk to people. Let it be known, because at the end of the day, it's about who knows you.


But connect to more people. Network. Be willing to volunteer yourself. Just be out there and not just be in a simple bubble. That's why I'm here today. When I actually emailed her, I was like, I want to be on this panel. But I told myself. I was like, hold on, you're not even a student here. But I was like, you know-- I'm just going to keep my head above the water and just wing it.


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: To jump off of that, I feel an important piece of advice for first-year students, for incoming students, is to remember everyone you meet, because they are connections. Networking is real, and it is a thing. I know during Bridge week, I met a faculty member that I've never met. And they connected me with another faculty member that runs a facility for people with disabilities. That's what I'm interested in, and I'm like, OK, I wouldn't have known this if I never would've just said hello to this faculty member.


GRACIE LYONS: Yeah, I agree. Networking is probably the best advice I can give to any first-year student. When I first got to IUPUI as an aspiring occupational therapist in downtown Indy, I knew that there was probably a lot of opportunities for me, but I didn't know where to start.


I'm getting to meet with certain faculty members like Dr. Roper, who has been a great mentor, and my psychology department. But also going to the PREPs Office and finding occupational therapists that I can shadow. And just create those relationships that I can now build off of, and go to many more places, and find what I really like to do.


SAFIA SHAKIL: I think I would follow all of these advices. They're great. Simply, just getting involved, reaching out, networking, all of this. It sounds very cliche. Coming from a person who's not really introverted, it sounds really scary, but it's actually not that bad, once you reach out. It's just everyone's so nice and friendly, and they legitimately want to help. And if they don't know how to, they'll connect you with somebody who will know how.


I landed-- the first two employment opportunities on campus, they were through peer connections. The professors recommended me to the IU School of Liberal Arts, and I started working in the Speaker's Lab. Then my humanities professor recommended me for the research project, and I ended up working with the IU Simon Cancer Center. And these were just professors. Imagine how far you can take yourself if you progress those connections and build that network. It really does help in the long term.


FERNANDA ALONSO: Something I would always tell my mentees-- the first thing I would say is, learn from our mistakes. And don't be like me back at freshman year. Be involved as soon as possible. It's a little repetitive, just everyone has been saying, but I would like to emphasize that to incoming freshmen, or first-year students, or wherever they're coming from at any point. Just stay involved, be involved, and make those connections. Don't be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone. It's very beneficial from an early point, as soon as possible. That's something, if I were to go back as an undergrad, that's the first thing I would do.


The first thing that I would say to my freshman year-self, to be involved. Not be afraid to step outside of my comfort zone. I would say, answering the first question-- I would say this is very important, because it helps you build that open mindedness and maintain that growth mindset as well. And you can apply that in any career field that you're going into, or any academic background you're in. I feel it's something that you can apply at any point in your life and help you be the person that you want to be.


KRISTY SHEELER: Great advice. Oh, Faith, go ahead.


FAITH ODIETE: I was just going to say, IUPUI, never hesitate to ask for help. IUPUI has so much resources to help you succeed that the people after-- not just you as a student, they're also concerned about your mental health and other areas of your life as well. IUPUI has so much resources, and you just have to take this up and never hesitate to ask for help at all


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: Yeah, I truly feel the faculty and staff here at IUPUI are here for the students. And a lot of them will help in any way they can.


SALONI DIXON: I was also going to say, I guess, just like my experience is important to me, but just in general as well, that a lot of the students that are coming to IUPUI, they have voices, and they have these passions that they want. But sometimes, they don't even know what their passion is.


It's really just important that they are getting out there and just trying as much as they can. For instance, I didn't even know that research was what I liked, until I had an internship with Eli Lilly. And then I was in the labs and my mentor was like, would you ever consider doing research? And I'm like what, that's a profession?


Now, here I am, and I'm striving towards that. I'm also a Social Justice Scholar, so we had a leadership delivering through social justice conversations. It was led by Dr. Tutant. I hope I'm saying that right.


KRISTY SHEELER: Was it Tussant? Dr. Tussant?


AUDIENCE: Tutan.


KRISTY SHEELER: Tutan.


SALONI DIXON: Yes.


AUDIENCE: Tutan.


SALONI DIXON: Yes. I don't have a lot of Black mentors, but seeing her on stage and just embodying what she has for her PhD and stuff, it inspired me. I sat there, and I was like, I'm getting my PhD, I decided. I didn't know that my freshman year, but--


[APPLAUSE]


Thank you.


KRISTY SHEELER: That's excellent, though. I'm going to keep on the advice theme. All of us are here because we're committed to providing good learning experiences for our students. We want you to succeed. We want all of our students to have these wonderful experiences that you've talked about. So what's a piece of advice that you would give to us about developing profiles, experiences, about thinking about how we can help our students? Anything you want us to take away.


FAITH ODIETE: One thing I would say is just taking time to learn each and every person. Because you have a different perspective of every other person. Just taking time to learn who diversity is, and I think as an individual, and how to work with that person. Because what might work for me, might not work for her. And that's something is important for faculty members to know, a different approach with different students, and what works best for them.


JALEN PULLINGS: I agree 100% with that statement. Another thing I would say, would be, to be open. And when I say open, I mean approachable. Because I've had some professors, or some type of staff, that eventually I am cool with. But originally, I was like, nah, they're scary.


[LAUGHTER]


It was like getting the ice broken. I don't want to pick on you, Dr. Turner, but I love Dr. Turner. She's a very, very great-- yeah, she's right there. I love Dr. Turner, and I love her so much just because of how open and accepting she is. As well as people like Dr. Eric Williams, Dr. Cory Clark. Everybody, for the most part, at University College, they're nice, open, approachable people.


And then for my major with accounting, Kevin Yancey. He teaches, what, A202, so managerial accounting. He was probably my best professor I've had, and it's just because of how open and honest he was. If I had any questions, I could email him just about any time. And he would let me know what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong.


SALONI DIXON: I was just going to say spreading awareness. As a junior, I came in not knowing that there was a lot of scholarship or research opportunities. Just letting students know that, hey, there's the SRP, or there's a Norman Brown scholarship.


Or there's these options that can help you prolong your professional career. I wanted to do research, but I was like, oh, I don't want to do it and not be paid, or whatever that may be. So just letting them know that there are these opportunities, and they can have that support financially and from the faculty as well.


FERNANDA ALONSO: I would say be empathetic and show that genuine interest in your students. Looking back at my professors at Herron, they always showed a genuine interest in me as a student. And as a whole class, they always saw so much potential within us. Speaking about myself, I was very insecure in my career field and what I was wanting to do. But they saw so much more in me and the potential that I had, not only within the classroom, but also outside of the classroom.


Another person would be my advisor at Herron. He saw so much potential in me. And with that connection, he also-- he wrote so many letters of recommendation for me. He spoke out for me, so I could be involved in different events that other students didn't have that opportunity.


I was very blessed to have that connection with my advisor. And having him be that person that I could trust and go to, ask for advice or anything with my career, it really helped spark that to want to continue, to believe in myself, and see that in me.


I would say be empathetic with your students and show that genuine interest in them. And if you see some potential, reach out to them and tell them. Because sometimes, we just need that reassurance. Especially if it's a long semester, or a hard semester, we definitely need that reassurance. So I would say be empathetic with them and just see that potential in them.


JALEN PULLINGS: I've been familiar with being emphatic, because I hate transactions-- not transactions, I hate relationships that feel very transactional. It's all, you're here for this purpose, and this purpose only. That's cool and fine. But what works for me is, you actually know who I am, and vice versa. Just because I feel like that goes away, and it goes a long way.


Something I always like to say, I say, conversation goes a long way, because you really don't know what people are dealing with on a regular basis. So you just showing interest in somebody's life can really just impact their day. You saying a simple, hey, are you OK? You don't know what it is for him, because you don't know if anybody actually does check on him. I'm a big advocate for mental health so simple checking questions that go a long way for people. Just having that interest and getting to know who your students are, that's great.


TIANNA ROUNDTREE: Yeah, you stole the words out of my mouth. Just believing in your students. Just being empathetic and understanding. And like you said, the simple, hey, how are you doing, or a fist pump-- I know Jerry Daday, he's in charge of the office I'm in, and every time he walks past my desk, he always gives me a fist pump, or something like that. He actually recommended me for this panel. And just being supportive like that, it goes a long way with students.


GRACIE LYONS: As a psychology student, I'm loving the emphasis on mental health. I cannot say that enough. It doesn't matter if it's just an email sending out to your students weekly, just making sure that you emphasize that you do care how they're doing. Give them those resources on campus that they can go to. And let them know that you're there. Because sometimes, it does get a little rough. Halfway through the semester and you're like, these professors don't care.


SAFIA SHAKIL: I'll say mine is slightly different. I guess, understand that every student learns slightly differently, and just providing those resources. Your teaching style cannot-- it's not possible for it to align with how every single student learns. That's understandable. But providing those resources, so that they can, on their own time, reach out to you or go to access these resources and learn the way they best learn, so they can truly be successful in their coursework.


From previous experiences, I feel like the classes the students are most successful in are led by professors who provide you those external resources that teach the same material in a variety of different ways. So that at your own time, you can do whatever it is that you need to do, whether it's practice problems, or extra YouTube videos, or just lecture notes. It's just providing those resources to your students. And knowing that they truly do want to learn and be successful, so that you can be there for them.


SALONI DIXON: Yes, I agree. I'm personally part of ADS. When I was 12 years old, I was diagnosed mixed connective tissue disease. That is something I battle with, and it has its ups and downs. But just knowing that-- for instance, Dr. Marrs-- I love her to death-- she worked with me. I was in and out of hospital a lot, but just knowing that there was a faculty member. I was taking the course, and she was working with me.


If you do have this disability students, in particular, I feel like there is a need to just touch base with them. And just make sure that you come to an understanding and work with them on what they're dealing with. I've had some teachers that I had to retake courses, because they weren't willing to work with me because of my disability. I can't control what I have therapy, when I have to go to the hospital, but it was just an inconvenience for me. But, it's OK.


KRISTY SHEELER: Any final thoughts? This is great advice. Please join me in thanking these amazing students.


[APPLAUSE]