How One Sr. Prog Mgr Transformed Student Engagement by Taking Ownership Beyond Job Description

Uh, something, um. Let me talk about a different experience, completely different experience. It's not related to Totally with work, but it happened in the workplace. So, one of the things that we, uh, we, we started doing at our company was like, uh, bringing in high school students. Uh, and this came, this came up from a, from a client request. Um, and what they were doing, that those students were, they were shadowing the engineers and just, just trying to see like, you know, that is, uh, that engineering path is something they would want to pursue, you know. So they would just shadow all the engineers, um, like sit with them, and one of, one of the engineers was shadowing me. And uh, I mean, I asked him like, you know, what's your motivation? And he's like, you know, I really want to understand, like, you know, what do you think, what do you, what things you're doing, what is your motivation? How does that overall project works? So I said, well, let's, let's see if I can do something better than this, the shattering thing. So I, I proposed this idea. Let's, let's, let's put together a team within the company itself, and let's see if we can do these, you know, uh sessions with them. And in fact, like, you know, give them some sort of like a tangible goal, like, you know, like, what if like they actually work on a project of their own. And let's see if we can make them compete with each other. So, We built within those, within those student groups, we built a team of like, you know, uh 6 students on one side and 6 other sides. And then I, you know, I, I'll reach out to different groups within my company so that they could volunteer because this was out of, there was nothing related to work, uh, it was something that, you know, that they, if they had the interest to like really coach or mentor people. And, uh, you know, and while, while doing, while the exercise was being done, um, I sent out these, uh, you know, these progress emails to the leadership in my company, just to like, you know, tell them what was going on. We would record these sessions and send them. But The, you know, at the, you know, after this, uh, 6 weeks of this, uh, these sessions, we had this final, uh, presentation. We, you know, we send out the, the invitation across the company, like, you know, not across the company, but to the senior leadership. You know, just, just, I didn't, during this whole time, I didn't get any, any feedback from them, like, you know, any, any response from them. But Actually, the, the CEO of the company, he forwarded that email of mine across the company, and he was himself present during that, that, you know, that event, you know, when the two teams were competing. And not only them, the parents of those students were also, of all the students who were there, there was a lot of, uh, you know, a lot of people from the school itself, like from the partner school. And this was a major success, um, you know, the, the, the senior leadership loved it. And one of the interesting things which happened from this project was that, um, you know, there was, there was actually a number of, uh, these, uh, these leads for the project, because now, the company got visibility among a larger audience. And this is like one of the, you know, uh, private schools in, in Chicago region, um. So, there, there are a lot of leads within the company itself, I mean, a lot of leads from the client organization. And since then, this program has expanded, uh, and now we have a lot more interns from those schools coming in. And that has, that has turned out to be a lot more successful program than what used to be. So that, that's, that's where somewhere like, you know, um, I took, I stepped up, uh, you know, to take on, uh, you know, larger, larger role, uh, where I really, I mean, it was not something that I had to do, but something I really wanted to do, you know, and made something, uh, good out of it.

Well, uh, well, my motivation was, uh, like, you know, uh, when I was choosing some of the, you know, decisions, you know, where, which, what I want to do and where I wanted to go in my career, like, you know, I didn't have the, like that kind of mentorship. Uh, I didn't know, like, you know. How this career path looks like and seeing these students were excited about that, but they were just not getting the, you know, the kind of, uh, they had the, the passion to learn, but they were just not getting the, you know, the right kind of mentorship. So, I said, well, you know, they're spending their time, they seem to be, they seem to be motivated to learn, and I, I love coaching, mentoring people, you know, I just thought of that, let's see if we can find, you know, enough amount of people in the company who share the same passion. Um, so, yeah, that was the really the motivation, like, you know, just putting a better use of their time to, you know, to do something to, for them to achieve something that, you know, they could be proud about and could really help them take the right decisions in their career, like, as that was the main goal behind this, this whole exercise.