When I first graduated with my Bachelor’s degree, I was confused. While I had a sense of accomplishment, I also wondered what my next step should be. After a year of agonizing over how to advance my career, I decided to go to graduate school.

Surely after completing a Master’s degree my future endeavors would be laid out in front of me like a yellow brick road. There would be no confusion, only accomplishment after accomplishment. I guess I don’t have to tell you, that this ideal situation didn’t happen. After receiving my Master’s degree, yes I had obtained new skills, but I was still flailing.

Enter my mentor, Deesha Philyaw, co-author of the forthcoming book, “CoParenting 101: Advice from a Formerly Married Couple on Parenting Across Two Households” (New Harbinger, 2013)

Let me back up to say that a mentor is someone who has the type of career you would like to have. You work with this person and they help to guide you, as you accomplish your goals.

Philyaw was a professor in my Master of Professional Writing degree program at Chatham University. Throughout not just my classes with her, but my entire program she was always extremely helpful, and went above and beyond the job of being my professor.

After graduation, although afraid, I asked Philyaw to be my mentor, and she happily agreed. Since then she has been a great source of information, and inspiration.

Why You Need A Mentor:

The First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama talks about the importance of mentors in the newest issue of More magazine. She says of her own mentor, "She stood out for me, not just because she was African American but [because] she was a professional…and she was a very passionate person who was committed to working in the community. She encouraged me to start a day-care program for some of the faculty members’ and staff members’ children. And I would have never done that without her encouragement.”

Mentors are a great resource to have because they usually have been where you would like to go. They know the steps you need to take, and often have ideas that you maybe have never thought of. So rather than walking blindly into your career path, a mentor can guide you.

Mentors are also great for being a reference on your résumé or writing a reference letter on your behalf, motivating you when you feel like quitting, finding resources or teaching you how to find the information yourself, helping you with your job search, and many other areas.

Where to Find Your Mentor:

At school— Do you have a favorite professor, or advisor? Do you look at them and wonder how they accomplished all that they have? Perhaps this would be a good person to ask to mentor you.

Internship—Usually you intern at the type of company where you would like to work after graduation. Your internship supervisor may be a great option for a mentor in that they work in the industry you desire to work in. They can give you a lot of valuable information.

Volunteering— If you volunteer for organizations that align with your passions and goals, you are bound to meet someone who would make a great mentor.

Student groups— There are often various student groups on campus that are based on certain professions such as the: Marketing Association, Literary Journals, MBA student groups etc. A mentor can be found either in the professor overseeing the group, or even in a fellow classmate. The mentor doesn’t have to be a lot older than you. Sometimes a person in graduate school would make a great mentor for someone who is an undergraduate.

Remember the goal is to pick someone as your mentor, who has a career like the one you desire to have. Their guidance will be worth so much more than you can imagine.

The three PAID leadership intern programs below are taking place this summer.  These programs are open to all majors.  I encourage you to review the program details and consider applying to one or more of these great opportunities.

GOVERNOR'S SUMMER INTERNSHIP PROGRAM (http://shrivercenter.umbc.edu/students/the-scholars-programs/gsip/), Deadline:  March 10th
The Governor’s Summer Internship Program introduces college students to the unique challenges and rewards of working within MD State Government while earning a $3,000 stipend.  For 10 weeks (June 2- Aug 8), interns: -Work in state government agencies on substantive projects, including drafting speeches and correspondence, tracking legislation, attending hearings, assisting with constituent case work, and researching policy options.  - Participate in seminars with top Maryland officials and make site visits to State facilities.  - Develop policy papers on a significant issue facing Maryland (e.g. the Chesapeake Bay, crime, care for the elderly) and present their findings in person to the Governor.

WALTER SONDHEIM JR. NONPROFIT LEADERSHIP INTERNSHIP PROGRAM (http://shrivercenter.umbc.edu/students/the-scholars-programs/maryland-nonprofit-leadership-program/), Deadline: March 26 The Maryland Nonprofit Leadership Program offers paid summer internship opportunities in the nonprofit sector to college juniors, seniors, and graduate students attending Maryland institutions.  Participating interns work for ten weeks full-time from June 2nd to August 8th while participating in bi-weekly seminars in nonprofit management.  Each participating student receives a $3,000 stipend.

MDOT FELLOWS INTERNSHIP PROGRAM (http://shrivercenter.umbc.edu/students/the-scholars-programs/mdot/), Deadline: March 7th The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) Fellows Internship Program is designed to introduce Maryland’s most promising college students to the rewards and challenges of working within Maryland’s integrated transportation system.  Interns can gain experience in policy development, marketing, international relations, computer networking, engineering, planning and financing, public relations, and neighborhood conservation.  Placement opportunities are available at the MD Aviation Administration, MD Port Administration, MD Transit Administration, Motor Vehicle Administration, MD State Highway Administration, MD Transportation Authority, or The Secretary’s Office. Participating student earn $3,500 during 8 weeks this summer (June 9- August 1).

Linguistic and System Support for Structured Parallel Programming

Dr. I-Ting Angelina Lee
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

12:00-1:00 Thursday, 20 February 2014, ITE 325b, UMBC

Parallel programming is hard, due to issues such as scheduling and synchronization. Most parallel programs today deal with these issues using low-level system primitives such as pthreads, locks, and conditional variables. Although these low-level primitives are flexible, they, like goto statements, lack structure and make it difficult for the programmer to reason locally about the program state. Just as the use of goto has been mostly deprecated in favor of structured control constructs, we can simplify parallel programming by replacing these low-level primitives with linguistics that enable well-structured parallel programs.

To enable structured parallel programming is not merely a matter of linguistic design. The underlying system must also efficiently support the linguistics. In this talk, I will describe my work on pipeline parallelism, a parallel pattern commonly used in streaming applications, as an example of linguistics for structured parallel programming. I will also draw examples from my research to demonstrate how novel mechanisms in operating systems and hardware, not just the runtime, can help provide efficient support for the linguistics.

I-Ting Angelina Lee is a postdoctoral associate in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, working with Prof. Charles E. Leiserson. Her areas of interest include designing linguistics for parallel programming, developing runtime system support for multithreaded software, and building novel mechanisms in operating systems and hardware to efficiently support parallel abstractions. Her work on “memory-mapped reducers” won best paper at SPAA 2012. Intel has released an experimental branch of Cilk Plus that incorporates support for parallel pipelining based on her work. She received her Ph.D. from MIT in 2012 under the supervision of Prof. Charles E. Leiserson. She received her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from UC San Diego in 2003.

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Chemistry and Biochemistry undergraduate majors are invited to apply for a ten-week (May 19- July 25, 2014) research program sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF-REU) and 3M Corporation. Program participants will receive a stipend of $4,500, a travel allowance, and housing. Participants supported by NSF and 3M must be US citizens or permanent residents of the US. Please use the application tab above to apply to the Chemistry and Biochemistry REU Program at Georgia Tech.

Each research student carries out a research project under the direction of a faculty member in School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. Projects are available in analytical, biological, inorganic, organic, physical, and polymer chemistry. Contributions by undergraduate participants often result in publication of papers in the peer-reviewed literature with the student listed as an author. 

Eighteen Baltimore-area startups and organizations looking to hire technology talent will participate in NET/WORK Baltimore from 4:00pm to 7:00pm on Thursday, February 20 at Emerging Technology Center (101 N. Haven St., Baltimore).

The companies are focused on a variety of sectors, including cybersecurity, game development, mobile computing, web design, education, healthcare and more.

Tickets are $5 (free for students with ID) and include free professional headshots and a happy hour 6:00-7:00. RSVP here.