Alumni Feedback - Why I Enjoy Mentoring Students

I do lots of mentoring in my position as Director of Quality at Pratt and Whitney. First of all, I started with the company after a BSME from UMass Amherst when I was 21 years old, so I can easily empathize with feeling new in such a large company. I mentor students, interns and our early career talent and l love it for multiple reasons.

First off, it helps the mentee to have someone to come to who can coach and guide and for me, there is a reward in helping others. Secondly, as a leader in the company, we want our people to feel engaged and supported and we want to help retain our best talent, so building relationships and keeping in touch with our valued early talent or future talent is a great recruiting and retention tool. I often use “stories” or retell my career experiences to help accelerate mentee learning and provide context and history so the mentee can leapfrog their learning through my experiences. We work in a big company with very much it’s own history and language so it helps to know where we came from and why we are where we are. That knowledge provides a foundation and the goal is to grow future leaders and help to broaden their perspectives through taught experiences.

I like to encourage career development through many different experiences within our company, there are so many different career choices an engineer can make at Pratt and Whitney, from Design, Structures, Materials or Metallurgy to Manufacturing Engineering, Quality Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Operations Management both in our Factories or working with suppliers in our Global Supply Chain. Mentoring is my way of giving back. - Caroline - UMass Alumna - BS Mechanical Engineering '90