Get There From Here

Stan State Offers Students a Pathway to Professional Success

By Gina Oltman

When students come to Stanislaus State, they begin an educational journey that integrates academic learning with career readiness and offers real-world experiences such as internships, service-learning projects, student assistant jobs and other employment.

Upon enrollment, students are integrated into CareerReadyU, a program intentionally designed to provide clear pathways to career readiness by graduation. On campus, they find the Office of Service Learning and the Career and Professional Development Center are resource hubs for experiences, guidance and links to dozens of business partners eager to give them a strong start in their professions.

As one of those business partners put it, there is “great pride in being part of the professional growth of students, especially from our local University, Stanislaus State.

“Turlock Irrigation District values being a partner in training and retaining the local talent from our community through our internship program,” said Constance Anderson, communications division manager at TID, which has been hiring interns since 2008.

“Internships prove to be mutually beneficial for the interns and the departments they work in. The interns receive real-life, paid training experience in numerous departments throughout TID,” said Anderson, who oversees interns in her department. “The District gets the benefit of the students’ fresh perspectives and eagerness to learn.”

Annika Lightfoot, a Stan State junior majoring in business administration with a concentration in marketing, was one of nine interns hired by TID in 2022. She said she likes that she is assigned to meaningful projects in a workplace that is community oriented and innovative.

“TID prepares me for the future by assigning me to projects that correspond with real work and responsibilities, and I’m gaining professional development skills,” she said.

Lightfoot is a good example of a Stan State student who is seizing opportunities and preparing herself for her professional future well before graduation. Others have or are currently following a similar path.

Michael Taylor

Master of Social Work, 2021

Bachelor of Arts, Communication Studies, 2018

While studying at Stanislaus State, Michael Taylor had three internships that gave him the knowledge and experience he needed to help others and make change in his home county of Stanislaus.

As an undergraduate student, Taylor practiced delivering clear, effective communications while interning with the Student Leadership and Development department. But it was the two internships he did as a graduate student, using his freshly honed communications skills, that he sees as the keys to unlocking his dream of making a difference. As an intern with Stan State’s Basic Needs program, Taylor saw first-hand how social programs can improve lives while he interviewed and connected students to CalFresh and other safety-net programs when they qualified. Later, as an intern on the government relations team of a large labor union that represents health care workers, Taylor learned about the legislative process and how public policy is made, social programs are created and funding is secured.

“Because of my internships, I can see how everything ties together,” said Taylor, who just completed his first year of employment as an associate medical social worker at Seva Hospice in Salida and is on the path to becoming a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW).

“Once I get my LCSW license, my goal is to develop programs that will help people and get those programs funded,” said Taylor. “I learned how the process works when I was with SEIU-UHW (Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers). And I know there is a lot of need here. I’ve seen it.”

In his job, Taylor puts his education to good use every day. He works with patients and families to coordinate end-of-life care and ensure they get services to which they are entitled. He often uses his knowledge of social programs and his ability to research public policy to help patients and their families confirm their eligibility for services after they’ve been wrongly denied or given incorrect information about a program they need.

“There is a lot of misinformation out there, so giving them the correct information is important to help them get the services they should have,” he said.

Taylor became interested in hospice work during a graduate class on death, grief and loss with Stan State faculty member Dawn Costa, LCSW. Costa is certified as an advanced hospice and palliative care social worker (AHPC-SW) and works at Seva Hospice.

As the class progressed, Taylor became increasingly interested in specializing in hospice care and talked to Costa about it on several occasions.

“Michael is a very genuine and kindhearted individual,” Costa said. “He showed an active interest in serving people struggling with grief and end-of-life issues, and he was engaged throughout the entire course.”

Serving hospice patients is a “calling,” Costa said, so when Seva Hospice had an opening, she suggested Taylor apply for it.

“Since his graduation and hire, he has been a true asset to hospice and the population we serve,” Costa said.

Stephanie Gamboa

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, 2020

Stephanie Gamboa

Stephanie Gamboa sets what she calls a “life goal” for herself every year. Much like New Year’s resolutions, the goals are usually focused on self-improvement or realizing a long-held dream.

If she ever failed to attain any of her goals in the past, she made up for it in 2021.

“I moved to Florida, started a new job with Lockheed Martin, bought a new car and bought a house,” said Gamboa, who works as a software engineer.

The year 2022 brought another accomplishment. Gamboa was accepted into the Lockheed Martin Engineering Leadership Development Program, an intensive three-year program that builds technical and leadership skills through coaching, mentoring and training. It also provides tuition reimbursement for master’s degree programs.

Gamboa says her achievements are the result of her Stan State education and the career-readiness opportunities she was offered and seized. At the University, she says, she found supportive and encouraging faculty, challenging coursework, meaningful extracurricular activities and financial support in the form of scholarships.

A first-generation student from Stockton, she came to Stan State as a freshman. By her second year, she was awarded a three-year computer science scholarship from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) program. By the end of her senior year, she had earned national recognition as a Student Scholar of the Computing Alliance of HispanicServing Institutions (CAHSI) and was in the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

During those four years, she also developed job skills as a student assistant in Stan State’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs (CPA), where she learned about website management and how to interact with internal and external customers.

“By the time I graduated, it was like I had already been in the workforce for four years,” she said. “I was able to take everything I learned while working with CPA and apply it to the job I have now.”

Gamboa said she made her position in CPA more than the “typical” student assistant job by learning as much as possible and applying the knowledge she acquired in her computer science classes to her work.

Gamboa quickly became the right-hand person to Senior Web and Electronic Communications Developer Mandeep Khaira, serving as the official web assistant for the web services team.

“I was lucky because everyone in CPA really trusted me. I was trusted to do my work and was given the opportunity to take on more responsibility,” Gamboa said. “That really helped me build my skills and my confidence.”

The job also taught her how to work well in a team and communicate effectively with a supervisor. She recently found out how important those skills are when she received positive feedback from her manager at Lockheed Martin.

“He told me he loves the update emails I send the team when I complete a task, because I sum up everything I’ve done and include links,” she said. “I learned that working with Mandy in CPA. That is how we worked together, and how I kept her up on what I’d done.” As a student, Gamboa never expected to be a Lockheed Martin employee. She said it was the annual Great Minds in STEM conference, with its massive high-tech career fair, that opened her eyes to computer science career possibilities at big, global companies.

As an NSF S-STEM scholar, Gamboa attended the conference twice: once as a junior, once as a senior. The first year, she talked to engineers from several companies to get a feel for their workplaces and the skills they needed. The second year, she was ready to apply for jobs and zeroed in on Lockheed Martin.

At one point in an interview, a Lockheed Martin manager asked how she would feel about moving to Florida, nearly 3,000 miles from her home in Stockton, to be on his team.

“I thought about it. Florida seemed like a cool place,” she said. “I’m still young, so right now is the time to go, move, explore, learn things. I have my family in Stockton, and I love them, but moving away won’t change that. And coming to visit them makes those moments even more special. So, why not?”

Looking back at her college years, she said Assistant Professor Dae Hee Kim in the Computer Science Department had a major influence on her and helped her build confidence when she doubted herself.

“He is definitely the one who convinced me to stay in computer science when I was wondering if I was actually smart enough to be there. He always had faith in me,” she said.

And she credits Professor Melanie Martin for signing her up as a computer science major when she was ready to declare but feared taking the plunge.

Looking back, both Martin and Associate Professor Megan Thomas

recalled Gamboa’s potential and said they are not surprised by her success.

“Stephanie took steps to make sure that good things happen to her,” Thomas said. “She was a go-getter.”

Cecilia Alvarez

Cecilia Alvarez

Bachelor of Science, Biological Sciences, 2024

Cecilia Alvarez’s love of science started with a strawberry.

As an 8-year-old, she participated in science lessons aboard the Ag in Motion mobile science lab that visited her school in her hometown of Modesto.

“We got to extract the DNA from a strawberry, and I vividly remember crushing the strawberry and collecting the string-like DNA strands,” said Alvarez, a McNair Scholar. “I was especially excited to keep the DNA in a little flask, which I hung on a string like a necklace.”

That science lesson and many others in subsequent years, as well as the hands-on teaching approach of her dynamic high school biology teacher, fueled Alvarez’s interest in science and sparked her desire to teach. When it came time for her to choose a college, she didn’t need to look far to find one that fit her career goals.

“I chose Stan State because I wanted to be a science teacher,” she said. “I knew it had great teaching and science programs. Plus, it was close to home and the best option for my family and me.”

After graduating in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, she plans to go on to graduate school. At the start of her freshman year, her goal was to become a high school teacher. She has since revised her goals and plans to earn a doctorate and become a professor of biology at a university.

“I’d love to come back here, to Stan State, to teach,” she said.

Alvarez is preparing for her career by learning all she can about science and taking advantage of opportunities offered at Stan

State to hone her teaching skills.

She is in her fifth semester as a STEM Ambassador and her fourth semester as a Supplemental Instruction (SI) leader. And last summer, she spent eight weeks getting professional laboratory experience as an intern in the prestigious Stanford Summer Research Program at Stanford University.

As a STEM Ambassador, Alvarez teaches hands-on lessons in biology and chemistry to elementary and middle school students who visit Stan State for Science Day and other programs.

“I’ve had the opportunity to design labs and teach biology and chemistry lessons to more than 200 elementary and middle school students,” she said. “The topics have included cell physiology, chromosomal mutations, DNA structure, gene expression, sickle cell anemia, protein folding and molecular polarity.”

As an SI leader, Alvarez works on campus at the Learning Commons. She leads study sessions and works directly with other Warriors to help them better understand chemistry course material.

As an intern in the Stanford Summer Research Program, Alvarez was neither a student nor a teacher. Instead, she took on the role of researcher. She was one of 20 students from across the nation who worked in one of Stanford’s 14 Biosciences Ph.D. Home Programs. Alvarez worked in the radiological sciences laboratory at the Richard M. Lucas Center for Imaging on the Stanford medical campus. She worked alongside graduate and post-doctorate students synthesizing nanoparticles that would be used for the targeted and controlled delivery of anesthetics in patients.

“I had the opportunity to experience what it was like to be a scientist and collaborate with researchers and educators across the campus,” she said. “I really learned a lot there. It was a vigorous program.”

When Alvarez reflects on the past few years, she recalls the summer between high school and college, when she was not entirely sure of her goals. Then she participated in a two-week Stan State program called STEM Discovery Academy that gave her hands-on experience in a lab, introduced her to faculty, included field trips and built her confidence.

“Because of that program, I declared biology as my major,” she said. “I really felt supported by the faculty and STEM programs here and gained the confidence to pursue a bachelor’s in biology. Now I am planning to get a Ph.D. That program had a big impact on me.”

Annelisa Cole

Bachelor of Science, Business Administration, Marketing, 2020

Annelisa Cole

As a Warrior working as a student assistant on the Stan State campus, Annelisa Cole learned valuable lessons and developed soft skills that are serving her well in her job as a marketing compliance analyst at E. & J. Gallo Winery in Modesto.

“It was one of my first experiences in an office setting, and I learned a

lot from it,” said Cole, who worked in Housing and Residential Life for three semesters, first as the office assistant and later as the social media and marketing assistant. “I learned about communication and teamwork, office behavior, how to complete an assignment and stick to a deadline and about being held accountable with weekly one-on-one meetings and progress check-ins.”

What she learned as a student assistant dovetailed with the lessons her professors were teaching in her business administration and marketing classes.

“My business professors really emphasized soft skills, relationship building and the ability to communicate,” Cole said. “That includes communicating about the good job you are doing. One of my managers once told me it doesn’t matter if you do a really good job if you do it in a dark corner and nobody knows about it. You have to communicate it to your supervisor and coworkers. Let them know you are really proud of the work you do.” A self-described extrovert who likes to stay busy and “do everything,” Cole earned her bachelor’s degree in three years, taking as many as nine classes a semester to stay on track.

In addition to her student assistant jobs, she served on the Associated Students, Inc. Board of Directors and was a New Student Orientation (NSO) leader. In both positions, she said, she learned about speaking to an audience, engaging people in activities and connecting with team members.

“Team building was huge for the NSO team. You just get a big sense of camaraderie, and you don’t leave that behind when you leave school,” she said. “You carry that into your workplace. One of my favorite things with my team is that sense of team building. Building bonds is important to me.”

A year before she graduated, Cole took a full-time, temporary job at Gallo as a compliance clerk. Over the summer, she found that she enjoyed the work and her coworkers. As the fall semester approached, she worked with her supervisor to establish a schedule that allowed her to continue working while she attended classes. And that’s when her life became a bit of a juggling act.

“I was working from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., commuting from 3 to 3:30, then going to classes,” she said. “I had clothes and water and everything I needed in my car, because I was away from home so much. When the COVID pandemic hit and we went to remote learning, I was actually relieved because working and taking classes from home was so much easier.”

The lessons she learned at Stan State and as a temporary worker paid off for Cole. She had her foot in the door at Gallo and was able to prove herself there. She was eventually hired into an ongoing position and has been promoted every year for three years.

As a compliance analyst in the spirits division, Cole reviews marketing campaign material to ensure it complies with regulations at the federal level and in all 50 states. Cole says she is happy at Gallo and is keeping an open mind about her future. Whatever she chooses to do next, she says, she’ll choose it because she feels passionately about it.

“There are so many jobs out there that I never knew existed, even on the marketing side. So, to put yourself in a box, and say you are going to do one thing, only limits you,” she said. “I’m just starting my career. I’m going to see where it takes me.”