On January 14, 2023, CABS celebrated the first Career Advisory Network (CAN) graduating class post COVID.
CAN is a mentoring program in the Career and Business Development (BCD) group in CABS. It is a direct one to one pairing mentorship program to guide mentees in their careers including business development, traditional scientific career paths in both academia and industry, and entrepreneurship. This is a free program for CABS members. The mentorship program is only made successfully through hard work, dedication, persistence, and service of the mentors who in their busy schedules carve out time to guide the mentees.
The graduation opened networking opportunities and lite snacks. The main event was the sharing of both mentors and mentees shared their reflections, experiences, and overall learnings.
Many mentors share that it was not only an opportunity for them to give back to the next generation, but also an opportunity for them to continue to learn from their mentees as well. There were many key takeaways and lessons.
Mentees range from early careers to late career stages to newly transitioned career paths. They were overjoyed to have been paired with a mentor to guide them in their career growth, navigating strategically, and communicating successfully for the next phase of achieving their career goals. Many expressed continuances of the program in 2023 as well as some mentees opening to transition to be a mentor.
Gifts of appreciation were provided to both mentors and mentees. The closing of the celebration included lunch at HL Peninsula, Burlingame where many conversations between mentors and mentees continued to grow as part of the career networking opportunity created by the CAN program.
BCD looks forward to hosting another CAN program in 2023.
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