Navigating through Colby and Beyond
DavisConnects helps students chart a meaningful path
On a cold Thursday night in January, more than 50 first-year students shake off their winter jackets, hats, and gloves and jostle for seats in the overflowing second-floor seminar room in Grossman Hall.
The students have come in from the cold for a new non-credit program that will help them get the most out of their time at Colby by identifying, clarifying, and articulating their strengths, talents, and goals while aligning them with success on campus and beyond.
“This course is specifically designed to help first-years understand and chart their unique path by understanding the curricular and the cocurricular options available to them, the community of parents and friends who are here to support and mentor them, and the number of experiences they can pursue off campus to clarify their trajectory,” said Beth Throne, dean of DavisConnects, who designed and leads the course along with Colby alumni and staff, who she brings in to co-facilitate sessions.
Known as ASPIRE—Authentic Success and Possibility in Reach for Every Student—the certificate course is among several signature offerings that Throne and her team rolled out in January. DavisConnects also unveiled a for-credit Jan Plan life design course for first-years through seniors, drawing on design thinking, positive psychology, and career-development subject matter to help students plan their future at Colby and after they graduate.
On Jan. 21, DavisConnects hosted the inaugural Global Night of Networking in collaboration with the Alumni and Family Engagement Office, in which more than 250 students and alumni connected in a casual online community based on their specialties and interests. “I have heard from students that they want more connections with Colby alumni, and we have so many alumni and parents and friends of the College who want to engage,” Throne said. “This is one of the ways we are doing that.”
As its core mission, DavisConnects guarantees students access to funded internships, research opportunities, and global experiences, regardless of personal or financial networks. By providing individualized advising and alumni connections, it prepares students for their academic and postgraduate lives. Throne designed the new credit and certificate courses to deepen students’ understanding of what DavisConnects, and Colby, can do for them.
Designing A Future
Designing A Future teaches life design through creative, iterative, human-centered problem-solving to navigate life transitions. The intended outcome is for students to develop confidence, competence, and clarity about their post-Colby options, as well as the tools necessary to satisfy those aspirations.
The course explores the importance of work-life balance and the benefit of incorporating personal relationships, physical health, work, and play into the routine of daily life. Said Throne, a certified life design coach who specializes in helping people create purposeful, intentional lives, “It’s less career oriented and more about, How do you design your life? How do you build in your relationships, your academics, and your work while addressing your mental, physical, and spiritual needs? How do you value your own health, and how do you factor in play and what you do for joy?”
Titles of the exercises and mini-lectures include the Value of Coherence: Talents, Strengths and Character; What Will You “Make”? The Power of Grit and Failure; and Ideating Your Futures: Odyssey Plans. Laura Renée Chandler, special advisor to the provost and dean for community engagement, spoke on intersectionality and identity in life design.
Nevin Conroy ’29 signed up for the course to help him map his Colby years and start thinking about life after graduation.
“I’m very good at living in the moment, living day to day. But I need to work on looking into the future, even if it’s a week ahead or years ahead,” said Conroy, who expects to double major in math and philosophy. “So I decided I was going to take this class to plan out my years at Colby, or at least try to make a plan of what I want to accomplish and have a plan for the future instead of trying to live day to day.”
So far, the plan is working. Already, the course has helped clarify what his future might look like. “I don’t know, but I do see myself becoming a professor, so that is one career path that is definitely open. I do like the idea of becoming a professor and teaching math or philosophy,” he said, noting that becoming a college professor also means enrolling in graduate school after Colby.
Charlotte Lambert ’28 signed up “because I thought it would help educate me a little more about adulting, career paths, and my overall future. What really appealed to me was that it wasn’t just a class about the corporate world or careers in general, but about my personal journey. I’ve never taken a class that felt so directly valuable to my own growth and self-understanding.”
An Alpine skier majoring in economics, Lambert would sometimes “get stuck on the career part” when thinking about her future. “I knew I wanted to travel and work with people, but beyond that, I didn’t have much direction. This course gave me tools to make the process feel less overwhelming and taught me that it’s okay to explore, prototype, and try many different things until I find what truly excites me.”
Now, she’s thinking about using her Colby degree in a business-related role, possibly in marketing or public relations. “I also have a huge love for the outdoors. I grew up on the mountain of Sunday River and have always been surrounded by sports. That’s my biggest passion, and I know I want to incorporate it into my future career, whether that’s working for an outdoor company, a resort, or representing a team,” Lambert said.
ASPIRE
Open only to first-years, ASPIRE is a comprehensive certificate program to help students identify strengths, explore career ideas, and develop effective resumés and profiles on LinkedIn, Handshake, and other networks to land the right internship, research assignment, or study-abroad opportunity. Students create actionable plans through weekly sessions and networking with alumni.
At the core, ASPIRE asks students: How will you make the most of your Colby experience?
With first-year students on campus for Jan Plan, Throne slotted classes on Thursday nights. Affirming Throne’s faith in the material, more than 55 students signed up and showed up, always in the dark and often during the bitter cold of a blustery Maine winter.
Jo’Anna Hill ’29 said she was glad for the opportunity to meet other students, connect with alumni, and “get some inspiration and guidance on how to go forward with my career.
“The more time I spent in this class, the more I understand that if I want to have a career that’s fulfilling and achieves the things I want to achieve in life and leave the mark that I want to leave on this world, I have to align it with the things that I am good at, that I am passionate about, and that are my natural inclinations,” said Hill, who intends to major in math and physics.
Aaminah Ali ’29 learned about DavisConnects soon after settling in on Mayflower Hill and attending sessions presented by Throne. “Dean Throne was magnetic in the sense that she was easy to engage with, and it was easy to understand the information she was presenting,” Ali said.
“This class helps you navigate your way through college and beyond,” said Ali, who plans to major in computer science. “This class gives you peace of mind.”
During a session dedicated to “articulating and writing your story,” Throne and Meredith Moore, director of industry and community partnerships for DavisConnects, led a discussion about effective resumés, social media profiles, and cover letters.
“Your resumé is a marketing document, not a transcript,” Throne said, emphasizing that it does not have to include everything. “Only the good stuff.”
The tips came rapid-fire: tailor a resumé for a specific job, keep it to one page—unless you can justify more—choose a clean font, use active verbs, attach documents as PDFs, and never use AI to write a cover letter or resumé.
“I can tell if you use it, and I can tell if it wrote your cover letter,” said Moore, who recruited employees for Hilton Hotels before joining Colby last year. “They all sound the same.”
After class, as his peers bundled up and hastily headed out into the night, Colin Maloney ’29 paused to talk about the importance of being prepared for opportunities, known and unknown.
“I just want to make sure my resumé is good, make sure my LinkedIn is good, and just get good advice,” said Maloney, who plans to major in computer science. “As a first-year, it’s just really important to learn as much as possible.”
