Career network established for Penn's student-athletes

As part of the Athletic Department's commitment to helping its student-athletes on and off the playing fields, department officials plan to announce the new Penn Student-Athlete Career Network within the next few days. Described as "a career outreach service to benefit current University of Pennsylvania student athletes," the program will help students locate former Penn athletes who are currently involved in careers which interest them. "It was an idea of mine that I've been working on for a while, and it is really getting underway now," Assistant Director of Athletics Robert Koonce said. The Athletic Department plans to announce the program by sending all Penn student-athletes a letter in early October. With the help of several work-study students, Koonce started work on the Penn Student-Athlete Career Network last spring by mailing letters to approximately 500 Penn alumni who participated in varsity sports while at Penn. The letter asked the alumni to mentor student-athletes and give career advice and information. Alumni were also asked if they would be able to offer internship to student athletes. Interested alumni were able to respond to the Athletic Department via a questionnaire, which included options to offer general advice, summer job information, internship information or all of the above. "So far, we have about 160 alumni interested in the program, and we're going to mail letters out to another 3,000 alumni. We hope to have 500 by the end of the semester," Koonce said. The information about the alumni has been entered into a database, which students will be able to search by career and geographic location. Corey Hannan, a senior on the Penn track and field team, helped organize the new program while working in the Athletic Department last spring. "I think it's really going to help me a lot because I thought I was going to go to law school, but now I'm not sure. I want to look through these alumni and see what's out there," he said. "We really want to get student-athletes excited about this program and get them using it for this summer," said Jessica Hammond, the program coordinator. Among the alumni who have already responded, companies offering internships include Proctor & Gamble, Goldman Sachs and Citibank. "There also lots of small companies offering positions, which should be just as great," Hammond said.

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