Sharing something as simple as your job title and description will allow our students to learn about the huge range of careers and jobs available to them with an IB degree.

Please let us know if your job requires a higher degree, since there are many students who would like to start their careers after graduation.

Time invested: a few minutes

This is the main way that students engage with our alumni mentors, through informational interviews and short conversations to get more information about what jobs and careers actually entail on a daily basis.

Christina will work with you to post an alumni profile on our website with a short summary of your job. All requests to connect will go through the Alumni Mentoring Program and Christina will contact you before connecting you with interested students.

Time invested: 30 minutes to 1 hour per conversation

This is most often a natural progression of shorter career conversations, but every once in a while we do get a request from a student for a longer term mentor. We can work with you to help facilitate this, or you can work it out with the interested student.

Time invested: varies 

We want to make the huge range of career options more visible to our SIB students. Our undergrads engage most with short videos on social media platforms so our aim is to post short 30 second to 1 minute videos answering common questions about careers on our IB YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

You can record the videos with whatever equipment you have available to you, including a phone. We will help you to make the videos look as professional as possible using your own gear.

The goal of these videos is to provide enough information that the students want to learn more – a movie trailer rather than a plot summary. We will be available to interface with the social media platforms so involvement will not require profiles or accounts with Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.

Time invested: projected to be 1-2 hours 

We feature members of our IB Community on social media to share what it means to be a part of Integrative Biology. We rotate between alumni, students, faculty, staff, and others. These short posts are drafted by us, then edited and approved by you before they are posted.

See some of our featured alumni here. 

Time invested: ~20-30 minutes

Submit your #iBioExperience!

We feature profiles of all of our alumni mentors on our website so students can learn a bit more about career options on their own time, and can reach out to learn more when they are ready.

Fill out the alumni survey and we will put together a draft profile. The profile will be edited and approved by you before it is posted.

Time invested: ~30 minutes

IB392, Translating your IB Degree into Career Success, is an elective, 1 credit course specifically designed to help our students learn about career options and build skills necessary to succeed after graduation. We do this by including around 20 of our alumni mentors in each semester to share their experiences, perspectives, and insights on a range of career-related topics.

Alumni guest instructors join for the full hour of the synchronous class period, either through Zoom or in person (when circumstances allow), though students do often stay after class to ask questions and continue the conversation. It is intended that guest instructors spend less than an hour preparing for the class, including: reviewing the itinerary and slides, adding information to their slides (if desired), preparing a short (5 minute) introduction, looking through the student question forum, and possibly 1 or 2 more quick items.

“The unique aspect of having alumni in almost every lecture [of IB292] helping you out with every step of the job search process is an experience I could not have gotten anywhere else.”

“This class helped me immensely. It forced me to come out of my shell, get more comfortable in talking with people in a professional setting, and get more comfortable with the whole job search process in general.”

“I discovered a direction in which I want my career to follow after graduation.”

IB592: Career and Skill Development in IB  is a new class available to graduate students. It helps build communication skills, develop professional skills, and explore career options.

Time invested: ~2 hours

We have utilized alumni experiences for a range of panel discussions, workshops, and events over the years. Your professional experiences and personal narratives are so much more powerful than any lecture, so we try to incorporate you all as much as possible.

In the future we would like to involve you in our IB courses, and will be working with faculty to see what this could look like.

Time invested: 1-2 hours

It is essential for our students to get first hand experiences in the jobs and fields they are intending to pursue after graduation. Too often their expectations do not align with the daily tasks and responsibilities of the job. Anything you can do to facilitate these experiential opportunities would be incredibly valuable.

Some examples are: having students shadow you during your normal working hours (for an hour, a day, or a week, depending on your schedules), short lab or field experiences (most requested: wet lab techniques, field techniques, animal handling experiences, first hand conservation experience), referral to colleagues or programs

Time invested: varies

In addition to working with IB there are volunteer opportunities through LAS as well including serving on the LAS Alumni Council or LAS alumni committees, mentoring, speaking to classes, offering externships, and more. See all of the options here. 

Visit the UI Alumni Association to see all of the campus-wide opportunities and events. 

Browse the LAS Alumni page to stay connected with the College.

We are always open to hearing suggestions from you about how you’d like to stay involved with the SIB community. Contact Christina at alumnimentor@sib.illinois.edu to start the conversation.

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