Johns Hopkins connects students and alumni through its OneHop Mentoring community

As he was preparing to return to the Hopkins campus for the spring semester, junior Christopher Crespo worried about his ability to find internship opportunities this summer. An international studies and economics major, he had concerns about how his skills in the classroom would translate to the real world.

“I needed guidance,” he said; he kept repeating one question. “What skills are employers actually looking for?”

To prepare himself, Crespo turned to a new Johns Hopkins resource, OneHop, in order to connect with alumni who might be able to help. There he met Samantha Flick, Associate Manager of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs at PepsiCo, who shepherded him through the often-confusing process of finding the right role for his skills.

OneHop is a new portal that connects Hopkins students with alumni through a robust directory system, discussion boards, mentorship opportunities, and more.

Farouk Dey, Vice Provost for Integrative Learning and Life Design has worked with teams and partners to integrate mentoring into the student experience. “We already know the transformative impact that mentoring can have on a student’s life, but we also know that too many students lack the connections or navigational skills to establish powerful mentoring relationships on their own. Our job is to make mentoring common and widely accessible to all students and alumni at Johns Hopkins, regardless of background or social capital” Dey says.