CoC | Undergraduate Student Campaign

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Welcome to the College of Chemistry Undergraduate Student Campaign!

This campaign’s primary purpose is to build the programs and resources that we, as current undergraduate students in the College of Chemistry, believe would be beneficial in our Chemistry community. We hope that you might consider contributing to our fundraiser that will support new pathways to student mentorship, career progression, and alumni involvement.

Stop by the College of Chemistry Plaza every Friday starting March 1st till April 26th, 11am-3pm to talk to us about our proposed initiatives! We will be there with donor appreciation stickers as well :)

*Have a question or suggestion? Interested to be a part of implementing these programs? Submit your questions and/or apply at: https://goo.gl/forms/jyA2LkPHkvi68CBB2

**If you are interested in volunteering as a mentor within this program, either as a student, alumni, or interested affiliate, we invite you to please express interest at the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/ZwwV50LogU5ZYHit2

Why Mentorship and Networking?

Matriculants from the College of Chemistry are among the top candidates for jobs in national academia and in the chemicals industry by various metrics and reporting services (https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/facts). However, many students in the College of Chemistry encounter difficulty when trying to find career direction due to the extensive scope of positions available within the chemical sciences. Thus, there is an unmet need within the College to provide additional job support and guidance. We want to address this need by developing a system of new networks and programs to support undergraduates' search for a path that fits their interests as well as provide more opportunities to pursue their current career trajectory.

Motivating our decision to pursue mentorship as a focus topic was a set of survey results collected from attendees at the ChemX Conference hosted in September 2018. These surveys of alumni attendees revealed that there are ~130 College of Chemistry alumni who are interested in mentoring current undergraduates. Having a large alumni population interested in mentoring undergraduates would be a refreshing step for alumni participation.

Aims of the Campaign

Each component to this campaign were developed with an overarching goal of building a better support mechanism for all students within the College of Chemistry.

First, we want to help expand the job roles of the Peer Advisors in Gilman Hall to include a tailored peer-to-peer mentorship matching system. This system will put the Peer Advisors in charge of connecting more upperclassmen, on a voluntary basis, to connect with underclassmen seeking personal guidance.

To better support our incoming transfer students, we are proposing a parallel peer mentorship program which will match senior transfer students within the incoming class, as we acknowledge that acclimating to the new environment of the College of Chemistry can be quite a difficult process. These systems will partially be facilitated by a program called Handshake (https://berkeley.joinhandshake.com/) and PeopleGrove (https://berkeley.peoplegrove.com/) which are specially designed softwares. Eventually, after the initial pilot program is implemented within the student body, populations that we would also like to engage in our mentoring platform include alumni and professional affiliates.

Second, to supplement peer mentoring efforts, we also wanted to establish a fund to support networking events, panels, and seminars in order for undergraduates to gain additional perspectives alumni, College of Chemistry affiliates, and local professionals working within industry. Though a number of student organizations on campus already host these sorts of events separately, we would like to unify some of these efforts with the college administration to lead to more impactful events that more undergraduates can partake in.

A showcase of our amazing student groups on-campus. "Covalent Connections," was co-organized by Alpha Chi Sigma and the American Chemical Society at UC Berkeley on February 22nd, 2019. Undergraduate students were able to network with Bay Area chemistry professionals working in industry.

Third, we would like to create a web domain on the College of Chemistry website which will serve as a bulletin board for job postings, summer or on-campus research opportunities, networking events and so forth. We envision this platform to be used by undergraduate and graduate students alike as they transition into the next step of their careers. This unified platform will also contain the aforementioned mentorship opportunities and networking events. 

Lastly, we would like to create an externship fund to provide undergraduate students with funding to participate in an externship or shadowing program, with alumni or otherwise. An externship is an abbreviated and typically unpaid version of an internship that can provide quick insight into a specialty field. This is a particularly intriguing program for students who wish to explore companies outside of the Bay Area. Funds will be regulated by grant application and will be used for fees including travel and accommodation. View the U.C. Berkeley externship program at the following link: https://career.berkeley.edu/Externships/Externships

The expected cost breakdown of our campaign can be seen in the chart above. Our initial fundraising goal will be $5,000. 

Projected Impact of the Fundraiser

Through these pilot programs, we hope the undergraduate community feels better supported in their professional development. Through the successful implementation of these programs, we can envision current students benefiting from an expanded professional network; in the long-term, we hope these programs can grow to benefit generations of CoC students.We believe that your individual contribution could make the world of difference for future chemists at UC Berkeley.

Funds will be responsibly held and regulated by the undergraduate dean. Each of our stated programs will be implemented by the future College of Chemistry Undergraduate Leadership Committee. If you are interested to be a part of implementing these programs, apply here: https://goo.gl/forms/jyA2LkPHkvi68CBB2. We also believe that these programs can be expanded to service graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, or other populations affiliated with the College of Chemistry in the future. Any dollar that you can contribute would make a world of difference for our community! We appreciate the time that you've spent considering our campaign.

All donors will be entered into a raffle for prizes such as CoC Quarterzips, ACS T-shirts, CoC coasters, and many others!

For donors near campus, also feel free to drop by our table every Friday, starting March 1st till April 26th, 11am to 3pm, to pick up a complementary sticker.

We want to help drive new collaborations on campus for mentorship, guidance, and career support with this student campaign. The event pictured above was hosted by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AiCHE), titled "Dinner with Start Ups," on November 19, 2018. Representatives from Bay Area startups were invited  to connect with students and discuss work opportunities.

A Special Thanks to...

Laurent de Janvry, Assistant Dean of College Relations - for all of your help over the past two semesters in spurring the student campaign, brainstorming, directing and support.

John Arnold, Undergraduate Dean - for your input, support, and enthusiasm in developing this campaign. 

Cassidy Nicolette, Development Associate & Events Manager - for organizing all of our event needs!

Christyn Lundquist, Event and Campaign Director - for helping to put the student leaders in contact with each other and making this collaboration possible. 

College of Chemistry Undergraduate Leadership Initiative Members

Ace Aguilar, Ashley Nensel, Cindy Chan, Edward Mu, Felix Majewski, Gaurav Kamat, Gregory Maineri, Jesse Orozco, Priyanka Raghavan, Robert Anderson, Sun Hajela, Ty Perez

Executive Committee: Daniel Lucas Kerr, Pearl Lee, Sophia Weng