Mentorship or seminar? Every year, each junior at Maggie Walker is presented with this important decision that will allow them to explore their interests and potentially gain invaluable information as to what college major or career is right for them. While the students who choose to take a seminar have a finite list of choices and a good idea of what they will be studying in the upcoming school year, those who take the mentorship path open the door to a world of unknowns. Working in a new field alongside a potentially unfamiliar mentor may seem daunting, but every fall a new group of seniors tackles this challenge. From the class of 2023, three students currently involved in this endeavor have shared their unique experiences and thoughts on the process.

Senior Charlotte Ream spends her mentorship time “helping at a lab at VCU doing neurobiological endocrinology,” where she studies hormone differences and brain structure and function, and how those factors affect human behavior. Ream explains that her mentorship began in January of her junior year with the application process. “We had to write an essay explaining some potential ideas of where we could do [our mentorships] and why we were interested in having a mentorship,” Ream said. After hearing back from Senior Seminar/Mentorship Coordinator Mr. Les Cook, she was ready to dive in.

Following her first quarter of working in the lab, Ream believes that her mentorship is helping her with her future career plan, and it also helped her realize that she wants to “participate in research in college and potentially major in neuroscience.” Furthermore, when asked if she would recommend a mentorship to underclassmen, she said that she would for “anyone who has an idea of what they think they want to do as a potential career because it gives [students] a firsthand experience into what a day in the life would be like.” Ream added that choosing a topic could be as simple as focusing on an interest in school or knowing an adult who has a career in a field of interest. While she has appreciated the “professionalism and workplace etiquette” that her mentorship has helped her to learn, Ream also supported the idea that mentorships are not all about picking a career: “It doesn’t have to be like ‘this is going to be my career for the rest of my life.’ You could really make it into anything that you want.”

Similarly, senior Annabel Tang described mentorship as a great program that provides “field experience for [students] and explores what [students] want to do for their career.” She states that her choice stems from her desire to “get hands-on experience in psychology and health fields.” As such, Tang participates as a research assistant with her mentor Dr. Nao Hagiwara in the Discrimination and Health Research Lab at the VCU Psychology Department. Currently, she is working on a study that investigates the extent to which “stereotyping and prejudice affect physician-patient interactions” to better understand how mistrust of their doctors can result in reluctance towards medical treatment. Evaluating her mentorship experience thus far, Tang remarks, “I didn’t know how specific and intricate a lab is and how many researchers you need to get a study published with solid findings.” Her involvement in this study has “opened [her] eyes to the world of research” and provided crucial, personal experience in a field she may be interested in pursuing in the future. Speaking on this aspect, she asserts that a mentorship is “definitely a great way to get into the field that you are interested in and know what you want to do for college.”

Senior Ava Geisel is part of a mentorship program through the Jamestown Rediscovery Project with a focus on archaeology in the historically rich site of Jamestown. Every day, Geisel gets to study and handle artifacts herself and gains valuable knowledge on “the identification of ceramics, metals, glasses, and faunal material.” One project that Geisel is currently working on is examining buttons found in historic Jamestown, which fits perfectly with her interest in fashion. Geisel adds that participating in this study has allowed her to learn about the “fashion of that time and place,” as the buttons “have been marked by someone’s interests, job, hobby, status, religion, culture, and family.”

An aspect of Geisel’s mentorship that she especially appreciates is her work environment. She is not located at a permanent desk or destination and says it makes it a very “enjoyable and stimulating environment to work in and it gives [her] a chance to work with new people and new artifacts.” Geisel also appreciates that the “people that surround [her] everyday tasks are very kind, humorous, and knowledgeable,” adding “They are often offering to answer questions, explain new things, and give chances to experience something different.”

For tips for rising seniors, Geisel suggests beginning to look into mentorships as early as the second semester of junior year if interested in a mentorship experience. “Begin reaching out to organizations and people early on to ask for an interview or to meet with them,” she explains. Geisel affirms that mentorship experience is “valuable because it can teach you essential workplace skills and immersion in a professional environment,” and it also “allows you to learn responsibility in a workplace without serious pressure.” Geisel acknowledges that “immersion is the best way to learn about a topic or field of study,” and that it helps you determine both your strong and weak points.

The mentorship program provides Maggie Walker students an opportunity to immerse themselves in a professional work environment in various fields of their choosing. Able to cultivate their interests, students can explore their prospective career choices or even college majors throughout the end of their high school years. As many seniors currently undertaking mentorships have described, such exposures encourage both intellectual and personal growth through constant teamwork and collaboration efforts. Mentorships supply a plethora of great experiences and can be a great route for any student looking to explore and develop their interests.