In most professional settings, you don’t always choose who you work with. Some colleagues you might get along with right away, while other relationships take more time to establish. Being able to work with individuals who have different personalities is crucial to being successful, and knowing how to build rapport can go a long way in helping to establish those relationships. Here are a few ways to build rapport and ultimately develop stronger professional relationships.
 
Find Common Ground

After years of hard work, you’ve made it to college! Now that you’re pursuing a college degree, you want to make the most of it. But how do you do that? Here are a few tips to help you find your way as a first-generation college student.

 Wireless sensor networks build resilience in a Native community — and in our research team

What do you get when you mix over 30 team members representing engineering faculty and students, ROTC cadets, aspiring lawyers, educational psychology instructors, and experts in flooding, then add a dash of ancient tribal knowledge, temperamental field sensors, wireless sensor networks built in-house, and unpredictable weather conditions — all with a one-year deadline and strict budget from a federal funding agency?

The unrelenting bad news about the trajectory of the Earth’s climate has engendered plenty of pessimism. But there is another way to react to the sobering scientific consensus. Rather than give up and abandon any responsibility for climate woes, a growing number of people — especially young people —are acknowledging the gravity of the crisis while fully embracing their ability to improve their future. It is an empowering attitude that helps ward off climate doom anxiety.

Amaiya Bearpaw has always loved the outdoors. Preserving and improving the land that her family and community are part of has been a force in her life. Now, as she gets ready for her senior year in geography and sustainability studies at Northeastern State University, Bearpaw is even closer to her goal of making a difference in her community — and to the land that her community calls home.

Lee Johnson hunts bugs. Not the kind with six legs, but flaws in computer code. He’s living his life’s dream as a security engineer working on MuleSoft, a Salesforce product, in Phoenix. “This is my passion. I’ve always loved trying to hack into things,” says Johnson.

Dr. Benjamin Parker recently became the first Indigenous student to earn a PhD in mathematical sciences from Portland State University. He joins a list of only 37 Indigenous people with a doctorate in math. While a career in academia supporting students as an ombudsman may be in the cards for the future, Parker is currently content in his new role with Intel as a software research and development engineer.

It’s not surprising that Hannah Funke has more than a passing interest in fire. She grew up in northwest Montana, where there is a prevalent fire season. When she was young, she and her father would chase wildfires, observing the crews managing them. Both her parents fought fires — her mom’s desire to become a smokejumper was interrupted when she got pregnant with Hannah. Her father went on to become a welder and her mother went back to school to become a paralegal and later a nurse. Neither continued their fire fighting as Funke grew older. 

It would be an understatement to say Clara Sockabasin felt alienated when she first left her small New Brunswick community of Tobique First Nation for university halfway across Canada. Adapting to rigorous classwork at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, a top engineering school, was a harsh reality check. “Starting school, I was already behind,” recalls Sockabasin.

Having a mentor can be an integral component to an individual’s professional success. A mentor can help professionals learn and grow, expand their network, and even provide new employment opportunities. It is important to remember that not every style or approach to mentoring is appropriate for every professional. Here are a few ways to mentor a young Native professional.