For the second year in a row, 13 local business professionals will take part in a program to mentor 64 first-year students from the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Beginning at 6 p.m. on Feb. 11, representatives from companies such as Whirlpool, Pilot Flying J, Kimberly Clark, EY, PepsiCo and more will attend an introductory dinner at Haslam to meet students and help advise them on their career paths.
The program lasts about three months, during which students will have the opportunity to learn first-hand about their mentor’s college experience and daily work, including taking a workplace site visit. The experience not only helps students determine their career focus but also teaches them how to conduct themselves in a professional environment well before peers who do not go through a mentoring program.
“By being matched with a management major, I learned what the major entails and what to focus on in the upcoming years,” said Hannah Dunbar, a business major who completed the program last year. “In my second semester of college…I [saw] the supply chain, production facilities and accounting department at an international company and met with its human resource manager.”
Mentors for the program are Haslam alumni who typically have graduated in the last 10 years. Students are part of the Haslam College of Business’s Venture Living Learning Community, a program to enrich the college experience for first-year business majors, giving them opportunities to take classes together, attend guest lectures and participate in community service projects. The program is open to all incoming business students and filled on a first-come, first served basis.
For more information on the Haslam College of Business, please visit http://haslam.utk.edu/.
To learn more about the Venture LLC program visit http://undergrad.bus.utk.edu/opportunities/venture.asp.
CONTACT: Katie Bahr, writer/publicist, Haslam College of Business, 865-974-3589, katiebahr@utk.edu
