The SIS Alumni-Student Mentoring Program offers an outstanding opportunity for SIS students to gain a career-building head start. Our program bridges academic life and the realities that lie ahead in today’s job market.

The Program matches students with alumni mentors for a year, considering each student’s career goals and educational interests. Mentors listen and advise, serving as sounding boards and providing guidance and contacts to steer mentees toward their goals.

The program is not limited metro-DC-based SIS Alumni. We welcome “e-mentors” as well. Alumni can mentor students effectively wherever they live. The program's rewards are meaningful and enduring for students and alumni alike.

2013 - 2014 Student-Alumni Mentoring Program Toolkit (PDF)

2013 - 2014 Mentor Application

2013 - 2014 Mentee Application

Students gain...

• Expert, seasoned perspective to supplement the advice of friends, family and professors.
• A personal relationship and freedom to reach out with any question, big or small. The guidance can reach beyond strictly professional topics to truly personal mentoring.
• The opportunity to make excellent contacts and valuable networking connections.
• A beneficial relationship that transcends a mentors job title due to the range of advice a mentor can offer. Some students have discovered a new field of interest as a result of the mentor’s experience.

Mentors gain...

• the opportunity to help SIS students think beyond their comfort zones.
• inspiration to reinvigorate their own aspirations.
• the opportunity to grow as a mentor over the course of a full academic year, and in subsequent years as a returning mentor!
• the opportunity to reflect not just on what tools are successful, but the "why" of what makes those tools work. Explaining one's job path or editing a student's resume are helpful in reviewing those "whys."