There are some things you don’t learn in school. Just ask a college student who’s overwhelmed by studying for the MCAT or a law student surprised to find out that law school isn’t anything like she thought it would be.
As students start looking toward college and the start of their professional lives, a little bit of real world advice can be invaluable. To help students with the ‘real life’ skills that aren’t covered in the curriculum, KCD is working with alumni as well as others in our community to create mentorship programs that give our students a taste of real world experience. Our mentorship program now includes groups for medicine, engineering, pharmacy, and law, and we’re looking to keep growing.
Our med school group was the first to get rolling, thanks to Samantha Barry ’06 (second year med school at U of L) and Farah Nasraty ’06 (fourth year at U of L). Samantha and Farah recently hosted two dozen KCD students at the U of L School of Medicine, where they toured the school and visited the Simulation Center. Students learned how computer-controlled mannequins are used in medical training and got to try their hand at a laparoscopy.
Other mentorship groups quickly followed, with Elizabeth Riner ‘06 and Celeste Hollensead ’04 (pharmacy students at UK and U of L, respectively) hosting a pharmacy group, and Stefan Staloff ’07, a current law student at UK, meeting with a group interested in law school. The most recent addition is an engineering mentorship group, where Austin Brownlow ’09 (in his final year at U of L’s Speed School of Engineering) was joined by GE’s John Ouseph and Emily Polhamus.
These mentorship groups are a terrific resource for our students, and we’re grateful for all those who’ve stepped forward to share their experience and advice.