Expanded Aztec Mentor Program Kicks Off

All SDSU Colleges Now Included

Heather LaPerle ('05, '08) is an Aztec Mentor Program volunteer who says she had great mentors when she was a student at SDSU.

Heather LaPerle (’05, ’08) remembers being a student and wondering whether she was making good choices that would lead to a fulfilling career. She also remembers the people who helped her through her worst moments of uncertainty and self-doubt.

"I was so lucky to have amazing mentors when I was here at school,” she said. “They were people who, when I was struggling or unsure of myself, knew who I was and were able to remind me of that and to guide me.”

That’s why LaPerle, who now works on campus as a peer advisor, coordinator and academic advisor in the undergraduate business advising center, is one of more than 300 alumni volunteers with the Aztec Mentor Program (AMP). Formerly involving students primarily from the College of Business Administration, the program expanded this fall to include students from any field of study at SDSU.

SDSU senior psychology major Sandra Narvaez says she is excited to have a mentor who can offer helpful career advice.

On Friday morning, October 11, more than 80 AMP students and mentors gathered at the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center for the expanded program’s kickoff celebration. That’s where LaPerle met up with Sandra Narvaez, a senior from Los Angeles who is studying psychology with the hope of a career in academic advising.

Like LaPerle, when Narvaez graduates in December she hopes to work on her master’s degree at SDSU. She sees great opportunity in having LaPerle as a mentor.

"I think it's important to actually network and find somebody who is already doing what I want to do and guide me into the future career I want,” Narvaez said during the celebration’s reception. “I'm very excited."

(l-r) Keynote speakers Britt Nevetsky and Meigan Mell ('11) shared their experiences as AMP participants.

AMP veterans and keynote speakers for the celebration, Britt Nevetsky and Meigan Mell (’11), met when Nevetsky served as Mell’s mentor at U-T San Diego where both now work. They shared with the audience their experiences as program participants.

Nevetsky recalled how much she enjoyed spending time with a student as bright and hard-working as Mell. Mell remembered feeling comfortable enough with Nevetsky to ask embarrassing questions.

“I didn’t know that COB means close of business or that EOD means end of day,” Mell admitted. “Britt taught me those kinds of things.”


“It's a learning experience and definitely a positive one," said Bobbie Gray (’92), an SDSU Career Services counselor who heads the Aztec Mentor Program. Gray said she is thrilled with the number of alumni volunteers who signed up for the program this semester and hopes to spread the word to get more students involved in the spring.

SDSU Career Services Counselor and AMP Coordinator Bobbie Gray ('92) says the program welcomes Aztec alumni who want to volunteer as mentors.

“Students want to realize their dreams and I think our alumni mentors are the ones to really connect them to that,” she said. Gray said she believes once the word about the program spreads among students outside the College of Business Administration, student participation will increase.

Alumna LaPerle, in the meantime, is a testament to the program’s value and the impact Aztec mentors had on her life.

"I'm still in contact with them to this day and so I think it's really important," she said. "For me, it was just a connection I had with someone who helped me understand that it's ok not to know where you're going and that life is going to be life and you’ll figure out your path as you go along it."

To learn more about the Aztec Mentor Program or to sign up to be a mentor, visit http://go.sdsu.edu/student_affairs/amp/. If you have questions, please contact Bobbie Gray at bgray@mail.sdsu.edu or call (619) 594-7067.