The CSEG Foundation Mentorship Committee has seen a great start to the year! We had over 50 pairings completed before Thanksgiving and continue to see more student applications filter in. The Mentorship Committee encourages meaningful relationships through our formal mentorship program where an industry professional is paired with a student. This pairing can be long distance, so students from across Canada can learn the ins and outs of our industry, or students who reside locally can be paired up with a Calgary based geophysicist. The CSEG Mentorship Committee supports the development of these relationships through our events and online resources.
On October 6th the CSEG-F Mentorship Committee held its 4th annual Student Development Workshop at the University of Calgary. Doug Uffen spoke to students on effective networking. A wide array of students attended from 1st year geophysics students to PhD candidates. Before attending the workshop many students were unfamiliar with how to cold call in the industry or what an elevator pitch was. Eric Rops, a second year graduate student, told us “Doug Uffen gave an entertaining and insightful talk about effective networking from personal experience. Following that, we split into groups and discussed various personality-based and social topics – this forced me to really think inward about myself which was valuable.”
Mentorship hosted its kick-off event on October 15th at the Nexen Annex Theatres with guest speaker Leigh Vierling. The national wrestling coach gave an inspirational talk on perseverance and how to consistently improve to kick off the 2015/16 Mentorship year. Leigh stressed the importance of improvement each day – even if only by one percent. A total of 50 students and industry professionals attended. The kick-off allowed students and industry professionals the opportunity to learn from one of Canada’s most successful coaches as well as network with their Mentorship colleagues.
The committee would also like to remind mentors to save the date for our next Mentor Workshop, January 21st from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm at the Tilyard Conference Room, ground floor, 715 5th Avenue SW. Andrew Brash, a Calgary teacher and accomplished climber, turned motivational speaker will be giving a talk on versatility. Andrew is best known for his attempt to summit Mount Everest in 2006, which was cut short when his team came across a stranded climber who had been abandoned in the Death Zone – 8,600m above sea level. Only 200m below the summit, Andrew and his team sacrificed their attempt to save the climber’s life. Andrew draws on this, as well as experience amassed over a career of climbing, building “one of the most interesting climbing resumes in Canada”, to offer our mentors his take on what it means to be versatile.
Of note, this Mentor Workshop marks the first joint CSEG, CWLS and SPE mentorship event. Mentors from all three mentorship programs will be attending; we are excited at the opportunity to embrace the multidisciplinary nature of our industry and look forward to more collaboration with both CWLS and SPE in the future.
We believe that by hosting events with a social and educational component we are helping develop the next generation of geophysicists. The CSEG-F Mentorship Committee is dedicated to fostering these relationships.
If you would like to become a mentor please apply at: http://cseg.ca/students/geophysics-mentorship-program
We are always looking for dedicated mentors!
The CSEG-F Mentorship Committee:
Alex Shrake, Stephen Kotkas, Jordan Vandean, Nathan Fester, Paul Hausmanis, Volodymyr Vragov, Usman Shahid
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