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Five Questions With...
Antonio Estrada, Comm '15
(Chris Pardon, Comm '92, mentor)

1. Has there been anything that you’ve learned from your mentor that has taken you by surprise?
What surprised me most about Chris is how laid back and down to earth he is. When I first read about who my mentor was, I had a pre-disposition on who I thought he was. However, from the first phone call on, that vanished. Chris is definitely a stand-up guy and all-around good person.

2. What advice would you offer other mentees to maximize the relationship with their own mentor?
Take initiative when it comes to communicating with your mentor. It’s understandable that things come up and you get busy, but chances are your mentor probably has 100 more things on their list than you do, so sometimes it’s up to you to initiate the conversation.

3. What are your current plans following graduation?
I plan to travel while also looking for work abroad. However, things are still up in the air as I have yet to hear from multiple companies where I applied for jobs or internships. I probably won’t know until a few weeks before graduation.

4. What has been one of your key findings thus far as a mentee?
Sometimes it’s not what you know, but who you know. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to have a good work ethic or produce quality work, however, sometimes being a good worker isn’t enough.

5. What have you learned from your mentor that will help plan for the future?
My mentor has given me a lot of information that I will carry throughout my career. One thing that I learned from my mentor is that grad school may not be my best option for me, even though I have planned for it since my freshman year.

Antonio Estrada is a senior in the Diederich College of Communication.

Five Questions With...appears in the monthly mentor newsletter and the online mentor toolbox.