 Welcome back to University Talk. Today we're talking to students about a new program that is rapidly gaining attention for its ability to transition college graduates to the workplace. This innovative new program is known as You Belong and here to share her story and give a little bit more insight about You Belong is Elena Garcia. Now Elena if I understand not only if you are a alum who's already landed a great job but you're also a mentor now in You Belong. Can you tell us a little bit about that and thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled for the chance to get to talk about You Belong a great new program that transitions college seniors into the workplace by teaching them those interpersonal skills that 52% of employers say were lacking. Wow now Elena I understand you feel you belong as a senior when you were beginning to think about making that transition from college to career. Can you tell us a little bit about that. Sure well I had recently discovered that I had enough credits to graduate with my English degree but that's pretty much as far as I'd gotten. I'm a first generation college graduate so I was thrilled to be earning my degree but I didn't know what was going to come next. I didn't know what was going to happen after graduation day and I didn't know where I could turn for help. Well that's definitely a scary transition I think for anyone. So tell us how did you discover You Belong it was through a friend right. Yeah one of my classmates actually had heard about the program and thought that I would be a good fit so she referred me to our campus career center and so there the counselor there was able to get me set up give me all the information even show me exactly how to log in and start my You Belong account. Great so you've registered for the program now give us a run through what was the process like was it difficult to enroll. Oh not at all it was very very simple all I did was go online create my profile I started answering questions about myself to get a closer look at what my strengths my weaknesses and my core values are and so after that I was matched with my student group. Oh so now did you know these students. Oh no definitely not I'd never met any of them before and we were a really interesting group there was Victor Chinco Claudio Rivera and Devin Friedman and we were very different but Victor and I were the most different. How so. Well he is a biochemical engineer which is totally not anything I'm interested in and he's a little younger he's into a rock band he's very take charge and action oriented and I'm I like to sit at home with my dog in a good book you know so we learn to work together and actually as the time went on we found that we actually have very similar values we have an appreciation for art we love to give our time and service to others and we believe strongly in personal development. Well that's great now you learn to work out your differences just with your like you have to do in a workplace with a grade. Now I know that you belong has been giving you a lot of exercises that you have to complete together what were these exercises like. Well when I first heard the term exercises I thought assignments boring team assignments but these were not like that at all they were very fun very engaging we were able to combine our strengths between the group members and figure out that we were complimentary in a lot of ways and each the activities that we did got us closer to earning a badge signaling our achievements and so these achievements all kind of add up to create this employment portfolio that we end the program with so as we were moving through each phase we had access to professionals to help us answer any questions that we may have or give us feedback about our choices so it was really very engaging it actually sounds like a lot of fun too so what is something you learned about yourself that these exercises that you might have not really realized before. Well I learned that conflict resolution is actually one of my strengths my team and I had some silly argument over something and it was actually me who'd stepped in to mediate and to find a quick solution for us and it because of you belong I learned that what I was doing was actually called mediation and I learned that you know there's a value to every interpersonal role within a work group no matter what the task at hand is. Nice now Elena it sounds like you you belong major team very close. Oh yeah definitely we became very close a really good support network for one another whether or not Claudia had lost her cat or Devan had failed his history test we were always there for another using the you belong app to communicate or Google hang out so whether it was online or in person we were there when we needed each other. So when the time came for you to venture out into the world of work and interviews what do you feel that you belong contributed most that you probably wouldn't have had otherwise. Gosh there was so much with you belong we developed our e-portfolios and that helped me clearly identify both for myself and employers what my strengths are what I could contribute like conflict resolution yes and when I got that first call for my interview I was not terrified at all really I was actually pretty confident because I knew that that e-portfolio we developed was very strong so you got the interview and you weren't nervous at all well maybe just a little bit but when the interviewer started asking me about ethical leadership and teamwork and decision-making and written communication I knew that I'd had experience with all those things because of you belong and so it really made all the the role playing that we did those group activities really really helped me to land that job that's great so you said you landed the job so yeah you got it yeah I did great well um I'm now a graphic designer for a big public relations company and really like I said those activities that we did in you belong in our group work really helped me to feel confident about my abilities and make sure that I had the skills that my employer was looking for that's great Elena your story is just so inspiring and it's easy to see how beneficial you belong can be to students who are making that change from being a student to employment and being an employee Elena thank you so much for sharing your story and being here today thank you so why is this important because a staggering 52 percent of students lack the skills and preparation needed to enter the workplace upon graduation as Elena has demonstrated with you belong students are not just part of the solution they are the solution what Elena might not be aware of is you belong's greatest strength it's self-sustaining open source model like Linux one of the last modules she undertook was a group-based critique of an earlier module the changes they made were fed back to the software and released to all users to optionally incorporate in their college's version as the participants grow so do the modules Elena is now giving back as a mentor helping new you belong participants engage their potential