Greta Fenley teaches BA101: Professional Development and Career Planning, to BHP freshmen every Fall semester and is also the resident BHP matchmaker, but not in the way that you might think. Greta has an extensive personal network of working professionals and alumni, and she’s passionate about connecting you to the right person to jumpstart your own personal and professional development.
“You know, I don’t have a magic wand, but I make students realize that they do. My job is to empower students and make them understand that they can do anything they want to do. A lot of students come in thinking that they have to do investment banking and consulting, but that’s not the case. I see my job as offering students the space to be whatever they want to be and validating them in that endeavor. And then I start connecting people to each other. Just the other day a student told me that the person I put him in touch with was doing exactly what he wanted to do, but he didn’t even know it because he didn’t even know the role was out there. Through connecting students, I can help them achieve their dreams.”
And even if students don’t realize what that dream is just yet, Greta believes that every path you take eventually leads you to who you’re supposed to become. “All the dots matter. Every experience you go through, you go through for a reason,” she says. “I hear a lot of students say, ‘oh I did that internship that I hated, or that class really hurt my GPA, or I didn’t even place in that case competition,’ but all those small experiences add up to big ones, and you can’t possibly see the significance of things in the moment.”
Greta described a time when she took an internship class in college because it was worth three credits and had no exams. She ended up gaining experience in career services through it, which helped her in a future job application for a career services role. “At the end of the day, the dots all connect and you’ll discover nothing was random.”
But if you’re still concerned that your dots aren’t connecting, go talk to Greta sooner rather than later. “I wish students would come in before they got stressed out and started doing the ‘what if,’ game,” she says. She also suggests that students come in once a semester, because situations and interests change frequently. “There’s a lot of power in informational interviews, and when I can connect students with people who are like-minded and have been in similar situations, they feel more at ease with where they are. When students come in often enough, I get to know their personality better and what they’re interested in, and I can better connect them. But when students let things get out of hand and are too stressed out, that’s just unnecessary.”
Even if you don’t have any pressing career matters to discuss, swing by and talk to Greta about some of her passions, whether that be her two adorable granddaughters or being outside in nature. The best way to make an appointment with Greta is either through the online career services advising system or by emailing her days and times that work for you.