"Because ISAs aren’t tied to my tuition like student loans, Edith’s ISA allowed me to live off campus this year when I couldn’t live on campus anymore. It also connected me with Chris – a PM at Google – and allowed me to start to build a real relationship with him.

Normally in mentorship meetings we both know that I’m asking them about something I want to pursue (like a job, scholarship, etc.). Because there’s a time limit, and it’s far from guaranteed that I’ll have subsequent meetings with the person, I really have to get to the meat of what I want to talk about. I have to do research before the chat to know more about the program, understand how to talk about it in an interview context, and maybe I'll be able to ask for a referral at the end.

All these extra details prevent me from developing an authentic relationship with mentors. But with Chris, I know there’s no rush. During the week I had a lot of little questions (such as when they ask ‘why this company,’ should I talk about the industry and the company or just the company?) which may have been too granular for a normal networking call. Because we meet regularly I was able to unload all these questions on Chris and get a better window into the general interviewers process.