Harry #1

My mentor is Emily Langan. She is an Associate Professor of Communication for Wheaton College. Surprisingly, up until my first mentor meeting with Dr. Langan, I have never met her in person. I heard about Dr. Langan through some of my friends who have had a class with her. The specific class of Dr. Langan's that my friends talked about was her Sports and Communication class. Those in this class had the opportunity to get a tour of the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks, as a class field trip. When I heard about this field trip I immediately made plans to take this class sometime in the future. My friends also mentioned how Dr. Langan works for the Chicago Blackhawks, which sparked even more interest. So, to feed my curiosity and to get know Dr. Langan, I decided to ask Dr. Langan to be my mentor for the class blog assignment.

I set up an office hour appointment with her and began our time introducing myself and explaining why me, a random Bus/Econ major, was visiting her office. She was very open to the idea and asked how I wanted the meeting to go. I told her that it would be best to make this first meeting more introductory and so I opened up with some questions. I first asked her what she does for the Blackhawks.

I learned that Dr. Langan is a Seasonal Game Operations Staff Member for Fan's Voice, a company aimed to improve the viewing experience for fans. Her job consists of attending Blackhawks home games and surveying fans throughout the game. The way she landed this position is actually a crazy story. Four years ago, while at a Blackhawks home game, Pablo, a Season Game Operations Staff Member at the time, surveyed Dr. Langan about her viewing experience. After completing the survey, she asked Pablo how she can get his job. He chuckled, and advised her to talk to the guys at the table outside the arena. After the game, she went to talk to the other Staff members at the table. The guys at the table ended up sending over Dr. Langan's name to other employees and it found itself all the way up to their manager. After a few weeks Dr. Langan heard back and was asked to join the team!

Dr. Langan ended the meeting by emphasizing the importance of being a go-getter. She has seen the fruit of being ambitious in her passions and advised me to do the same. She talked about more things in the first meeting but I felt this story was the thing that stuck out most. I am excited to ask follow up questions about her experience of balancing out her duties as a college professor and an employee for the Blackhawks. This first meeting ended up being more than an introductory meeting and I came out of it excited to hear more!