With over 17,000 Scholar alumni in the professional ranks, there is an incredible wealth of experience and lessons that can be shared with current Scholars. While some working relationships come about organically through networking, internships or by chance, Schreyer’s two mentoring programs offer a more tailored option for connecting the College’s students with alumni who can help with career preparation.
The Society of Distinguished Alumni (SDA) Mentoring Program and Mentoring with Honors are made possible by accomplished Penn State graduates who volunteer to work with current Scholars who apply for, and are accepted into, the programs. The mentees take the lead on setting up times to talk, choosing what to discuss with their mentor(s) and setting goals for what they’ll accomplish in their time together.
In the SDA program, Scholars are paired with recipients of Penn State’s Distinguished Alumni Award, which recognizes the University’s highest-achieving graduates. Mentors in the SDA program are typically seasoned professionals who have served as industry, academia, government or military leaders and can offer insights to Scholars in any discipline. The most recent cohort of mentors and mentees that convened for the 2023-24 academic year marked the 25th anniversary of the SDA mentoring program. Among them was a pair that showcased the value of the program’s interdisciplinary nature.
Thomas Ulmer, a 1996 graduate with a bachelor of science degree in administration of justice, received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016. His “decorated career as an officer in the United States Navy, his service to country and his dedication to humanitarian assistance operations” highlight why he was chosen for the honor.
“Not long after receiving the award, I was introduced to the SDA Mentoring Program,” Ulmer said. “Wanting to give back to the Penn State community that helped shape my career and my personal growth, I eagerly jumped at the opportunity.”
During the 2023-24 academic year, Ulmer mentored Nate Carey, then a third-year Schreyer Scholar pursuing his integrated undergraduate/graduate degree in biotechnology. At surface level, the pairing might seem like an unconventional fit; a STEM major receiving career advice from a decorated Naval officer. Carey, though, had the insight to understand how Ulmer’s expertise could benefit him in the long run.
Through his experience in student organizations, the Center of Excellence in Industrial Biotechnology and Penn State’s Society for Industrial Biotechnology, and work with the bioprocess optimization software company BioReact, Carey began to see how his major intersected with leadership and entrepreneurship. Ulmer, who has extensive experience building cohesive and high-functioning teams of Navy sailors and Marines for missions in the Middle East, was an ideal fit for helping Carey develop some essential skills.
“With [Tom’s] experience, most of our conversations are focused on strategies to improve my performance and learning as a leader,” Carey said. “He’s had valuable insight into professional life in the U.S. and abroad, which has translated into important career planning on my end.”
“Nate and I have talked about how, as leaders, we like to ‘hold’ responsibilities close to us, especially in smaller, potentially more fragile organizations,” Ulmer added. “Trust is a hard thing, and I have struggled with it many times. From time-to-time, leaders will be burned by trusting people. However, we can’t stop trusting people, delegating responsibility or assigning tasks.”
Their time together has also influenced Carey’s plans on how he’d like to give back in the future.
“Along with Tom, I’ve had mentors in the academic, industrial and military areas, and they’ve all expressed the importance of giving back. With that in mind, I’m certain that I will be a resource for the future scientists and engineers around me.”
Nate Carey
Like Carey, Alayna Auerbach was a part of the SDA Mentoring Program during the 2014-15 academic year. As a fourth-year finance major, she was paired with former Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Robert Jubelirer, and the experience impacted her positively in more ways than one. When Auerbach reflects on what she gained as a mentee, she is quick to point out how it helped her understand the breadth of opportunities available to her after college.
“I was a finance major and it felt like the only options for me were consulting, investment banking or working in corporate finance,” Auerbach said. “Through mentoring, though, I learned so much about the different types of roles that were out there like entrepreneurship and other startup environments, nonprofits and foundations. My mentors were living proof that you can take on a career trajectory that’s totally different from your major.”
Schreyer’s Mentoring with Honors program provided Auerbach with the type of volunteer opportunity she was looking for so that she could give back. Sponsored by the Scholar Alumni Society Board, Mentoring with Honors develops professional relationships between Scholar alumni who volunteer as mentors and current Scholars who want help with career exploration.
Mentoring with Honors traces its roots back 33 years to Schreyer’s predecessor, the University Scholars Program. When it debuted in 1991, the program was called the Scholar Alumni to Scholars Mentoring Program, and evolved into its current form in the early 2000s.
Auerbach began her career by spending just over six years with PwC in various associate and manager roles. Since February of 2023, however, she has moved on to a management position with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in New York City. Though she’s nearing her 10-year anniversary of reaching Scholar alumni status, Auerbach is driven to stay connected to the College and give back to it, including as a leader on the Scholar Alumni Society Board.
“I loved my experience in Schreyer, especially because of the people I met in the community, so I want to continue having it as a part of my life,” she said. “By serving as a mentor and staying involved in the College, I can continue as a part of the community and meet new people. It’s even given me the chance to be mentored by alumni who are more experienced than me and even by the Scholars themselves. I learn so much from them.”
One of those Scholars was Auerbach’s Mentoring with Honors protege from 2022-23, Zoe Mouchantaf. When the pair began, Mouchantaf’s needs were quite different compared to Auerbach’s when she was a Scholar. Instead of looking for support with the job search, application and interview process, Mouchantaf, an industrial engineering major, entered Mentoring with Honors having already signed a job offer from McKinsey and Company. She also came into the mentoring program with a clear idea of what she wanted from it.
“I asked [Alayna] a lot of questions about how I could distinguish myself within the company, how to get on project teams, what the relationship with my managers would look like and things like that,” Mouchantaf said. “She worked at a company similar to mine after graduation, so she helped me a lot in navigating those questions.
There was one especially impactful lesson from Auerbach that Mouchantaf felt set her up for early success at McKinsey.
“Alayna mentioned that it would be helpful for me to reach out to people at the office before joining,” Mouchantaf said. “I took her advice and before my start date, I reached out to a few Penn State alums and a few associates at the company to set up time with them. On my first day, I had several meetings with colleagues that helped me learn the culture and get familiar with what they do. That readiness I had came from Alayna.”
For her part, Auerbach noted that helping Zoe afforded her the opportunity to reflect on how she would have prepared during the year leading up to the start of her career. Those reflections formed the foundation for the discussions they had and the strategy they set to help Mouchantaf succeed in her new role. Auerbach was grateful for the opportunity to take on a different type of challenge for a mentor, and for the relationship she gained from it.
“Zoe really challenged me and asked questions that were rewarding to answer because they weren’t simple. She was a great mentee because she was so prepared and thoughtful, and it was rewarding to think about innovative ways to support her and answer her questions.”
Alayna Auerbach
Auerbach is also eager for her fellow Scholar alumni to get involved with mentoring and share some of the same benefits she has enjoyed.
“I’ve learned so much from interacting with students, and they make it so that I have to keep learning and growing in order to help them,” she said. “Also, I think that [mentors] really can make a big difference in students’ lives. Your advice or lessons, that might seem minuscule to you, can impact a student’s life or career more than you know.”
