CSEG Foundation Mentorship program

The CSEG Foundation Mentorship program, just completed its 9th year, and it was a year of challenge, change and progress. 2017/2018 saw membership in the program drop steeply from over 50 pairings in previous years to 33 pairings this year. Although it was smaller, the Mentorship program continued to strengthen its national and international reach with ten ‘distance’ pairings, having local Calgary mentors supporting mentees from across Canada and beyond - one pairing extending to Wilberforce Island, Nigeria. Our committee members continued to focus on ensuring quality programming, resulting in a very strong year for our Mentorship group.

The Mentorship program partnered with a number of new and old friends throughout this season; collaborating to create value for students and mentors. Our partners this year included:

GeoWomen of Calgary
Emerging Professionals Program (EPP)
Danielle Wolf and Career Chicks YYC
Rundle Group of Geoscience (U of C)
Energy Minute
U of C Geo Alumni
Lisa Dare & Associates.

The Mentorship Kick-off event was once again combined with the Junior Geophysicists Forum. The Emerging Professionals Program and Mentorship teamed up for the JGF, focusing on the ‘Future of Energy’ with a multi-disciplinary panel that comprised Academic, Business, Alternative Energy and Oil and Gas perspectives. The event was well attended, with over 120 guests. In addition to being a great educational and networking event, cash and food donations were collected on behalf of the Calgary Food Bank, showing our support of our community.

The Mentorship program teamed up in 2017/2018 with Danielle Wolf of Career Chicks consulting agency to offer career advisory sessions for mentees. The thirty minute sessions were held at the U of C and covered topics of interest from resume touch-ups, interview practice and cover letter help. These sessions were well received by our students and the committee is excited to continue teaming up with Danielle going-forward. This year we hope to extend these sessions to our out-of-town mentees using Skype-in career advisory sessions. In addition to these sessions, Danielle also hosted the 2018 winter student workshop – an interactive resume building workshop held at the U of C.

In January, our annual Mentor Workshop was hosted by executive coach Lisa Dare who focused on high impact communication and the power of asking better questions in order to get better answers. Typically reserved for mentors only, this year the workshop was expanded to include both mentors and mentees. A big thank you to all of the students and mentors who made it out to this lunch hour event.

2018 marked the second year of the Mentorship-sponsored Rundle Group of Geoscience Dodgeball Tournament. Both SeisWare and the CSEG Foundation Mentorship program entered industry teams to challenge the next generation of geoscientists. Despite entering as heavy favourites, both industry teams eventually fell to the youth movement in the double elimination tournament. The loss was especially hard to take for the defending champions, Mentorship, as a repeat championship was stolen from their grasp in a heartbreaking semi-final loss to the eventual champions ‘Family Business’.

The final event in the Mentorship calendar for 2018 was the Wrap-up, held at National on 10th. There was plenty of good conversation, good food and some friendly competition on the bowling lanes. Another wrap to a great year.

There are a number of developments the committee is excited for in this coming 2018/2019 year and that includes the continued growth of our partnership with both GeoWomen and the U of C Geo Alumni group. GeoWomen is grass-roots initiative started in 2014. A member program of AWSN, their motivation is to help women embarking on a career in geoscience in Calgary to get from new graduate to retiring at the top of their game. The Geo Alumni group is a collective of University of Calgary graduates who are focused on offering mentorship to young geoscientists professionals. Both of these groups are looking to join forces with CSEG Foundation Mentorship and expand the reach of Mentorship in Geoscience.

The committee would like to extend a personal thanks to each of our mentors and mentees for taking part in our program. It is our goal to create meaningful mentorship opportunities for the next generation of geoscientists and we are excited to continue to encourage the growth of both our students and mentors in 2018/2019. If you are interested in taking part in the CSEG Foundation Mentorship program, visit us at cseg.ca/students/geophysics-mentorship-program or contact us directly via mentorship@cseg.ca