By Steve Wampler
During the past nine years as a student at UCLA and then as an engineer, Rajani Bansal has mentored about 35 college and high school students.
And she doesn’t plan to quit helping students anytime soon.
“I think I want to continue to mentor students for the rest of my life. It’s been a wonderful experience,” said Bansal, who has worked at LLNL for about 21 months as an environmental engineer in the Environmental Restoration Department.
During her sophomore year of college in 2012, as she was earning her bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from UCLA, Bansal started mentoring college students.
“It’s been an awesome experience. I love working with the students because honestly, it’s not just me giving, but I also receive as I learn so much about myself from these mentoring programs.
“It’s also very rewarding to see how the students progress and move into the work world and to see how the advice I’ve given them has helped them with their first jobs,” Bansal said.
During the summer of 2020, several students whom Bansal was mentoring told her how disappointed they were that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to serve on internships because of COVID.
In response, Bansal contacted the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICE) chapter at UCLA and set up a 10-week summer seminar simulated internship program for six students under the auspices of the AICE UCLA chapter.
“Most of the students worked so hard and they asked questions right and left. I felt humbled that they wanted to do this internship and considered my work experience to be valuable to them,” Bansal continued.
Earlier this year, Bansal was picked to be the keynote speaker for “WOW, It’s Engineering,” an event where girls from third grade and up learn more about STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). It is sponsored by the UCLA Society of Women Engineers.
“I was very, very honored that they thought my past work experience would be helpful to the girls attending the conference,” she said.
Mentoring and helping students are efforts she plans to continue.
