February 11, 2025
Last year, SUNY Polytechnic Institute launched its pilot program for its STEM mentorship program thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Women’s Fund of Herkimer and Oneida Counties. The program is continuing for a second year.
“I’m usually a bit apprehensive about this kind of stuff but I think the more I just kind of delve into it, I can kind of make it my own,” said Emily Ditton, a freshman at SUNY Polytechnic Institute studying civil engineering technology.
Ditton is part of the college’s mentorship program that supports first-year female students in STEM.
For this group session, they crafted vision boards and talked about their future with the help of a life coach.
“Being able to figure out what I want with my life, what I want with this semester, what I want to get out of my college experience and what I want to be able to prepare myself for. It’s kind of interesting to be able to take a step back and just be able to craft a visual representation of that,” said Ditton.
“The goal is to ultimately connection, connecting in a new way to yourself, to each other, to your vision, just thinking outside of your normal parameters,” said Angela Decarlis, a life coach who helps people grow to the next level.
“Having like-minded women together, really powerful mentors and really hopefully talented facilitators, they can have the right dynamics to grow them in a way that they haven’t been able to before,” said Decarlis.
“It’s an amazing opportunity for somebody like me and many of my colleagues to give back to SUNY POLY and to the students and to share some of our experiences to guide them and to offer encouragement,” said Jasminka Husic, a SUNY POLY grad and CFO of New York State Technology Enterprise Corporation.
Husic added that the program allows students to see that they are not alone.
“It’s critical that you can see somebody who is maybe not a lot like you but who is also a woman, who’s been through this and can share their stories with you,” Husic said. “Then, you see their success and it tells you, ‘I can do this, too.’ ”
“For women in STEM, we have to stick together,” said Ditton.
Read the article and watch the news story from Spectrum News.
Learn more about NYSTEC.
