Maryland Made September Career Readiness Workshops

On September 12 and 13, the Maryland Made program hosted a set of NIL partnership career readiness workshops for student-athletes interested in developing their skills on and off the field. 

The first event was titled “DISCovering Yourself.” It was intended for upperclassmen who are completing their DISC assessment, a personality assessment that provides them with an analysis of their leadership styles. The second event was titled “Identify Who You Are.” This was a session intended for underclassmen. In this session, student-athletes discussed building self-efficacy, confidence, and belonging by examining who you are outside of your sport and career. 

Program Director for Student-Athlete Career Readiness and event organizer for “DISCovering Yourself,” Daeze Alaeze shares a unique perspective that helps her to put herself in the shoes of the student-athletes she mentors. 

“I use my role to make sure student-athletes are getting what I know I wanted as a student-athlete,” Alaeze said. “These events work to help them find ways to figure out who they are outside of sports. An event like this lets student-athletes see their natural strengths and how that is transferable to whatever industry they want to go into moving forward.”

Alaeze, a former student-athlete for the women’s basketball team at Virginia Commonwealth University, strives to empathize with the student-athlete experience so that they can learn more about how to market themselves better towards sponsorships, jobs, etc.

This event helped student-athletes learn more about their leadership styles and how to communicate with those who are different from them. After completing their DISC assessment, they discussed how to work best with people who may not identify with their leadership style.  

Krista Varrichione is a senior student-athlete on the Maryland Women's Soccer team. Varrichione is double majoring in business information systems and finance. She joined the Gossett Fellows program last year after it was recommended to her by some of her teammates and her coach. 

“It has been really helpful to work with mentors and to be able to dabble between different fields and figure out really what you want to do in life after sport. People can get so consumed in their sport that they forget to plan for their future so this program has really helped me know what I want for mine,” Varrichione said. 

She plans to take the information systems path upon graduation and begin working full-time for Raveon Technologies. In this, she will be a part of a digital leadership development program where she will learn more about building her leadership skills inside the workplace.

Coordinator of Student-Athlete Development and “Identify Who You Are” event organizer Sydney Anderson details how the second event of this monthly series works as an “opportunity for students to discover different things about their identities,” said Anderson. 

The event followed the Maryland Made slogan “Be who you are, do what you want.” This was an opportunity for students to discover different things about their identities. Activities included sharing aspects of their identity that are not visible, social identity wheel, and drawing a picture of when they felt the most confident, etc. 

The event’s foundation was tying together identity and confidence. Student-athletes had two stations that they went to after the beginning activities. 

“The first station was writing a letter to their past, present and future selves and the other station was about transforming negative talk,” said Anderson. 

To make sure the career readiness events are not just another time-consuming commitment in student-athletes’ lives, Maryland Made staff makes sure that programs are a monthly addition that will benefit them during that specific month. 

“We realized student-athletes have a lot of time commitments, so we make sure that it is during a time that works best for them, once a month to develop their career readiness,” said Anderson.

Kevin Collins is a current sophomore on the Maryland Track & Field team. He is studying business management and found the event for underclassmen to be inspiring and helpful in planning his college career. 

Especially on the earlier side of his college career, events like these have helped him to gain confidence and learn more about securing internships while succeeding in his major. 

“I gained better knowledge of understanding the positive things I have to say to myself instead of negative talk,” said Collins. 

Collins is grateful towards programs like these in helping student-athletes like himself develop their professional skills that they can benefit from after sports.