Families

BEAM helps students transform their educational interests and ambition into meaningful work. Students can learn from their peers, tap into their career community, or learn from thousands of alumni who want to help the next generation of Stanford students succeed. BEAM empowers students to build connections through mentoring, networking, and experiential education. 

Explore What We Offer Students 

BEAM offers a wide array of ways for Stanford students to start their career education from frosh all the way to postdocs. All events are listed in Handshake and students can use their Stanford student ID to sign in by going to stanford.joinhandshake.com. Events and appointments are free to students and limited services are available to first-year alumni and student spouses/domestic partners. 

Encourage your student to commit to trying one or two career education opportunities per quarter, from first year through graduate school. Here are ten ways for Stanford students to explore what a meaningful life might look like to them:

1) Meetups: Meetups are career-community building opportunities engage students, employers, and alumni in informal group discussions on various topics that may be student suggested. Our career coaches offer 250+ meetups each year!

2) BEAM Treks: These experiential trips give students the chance to visit different workplaces and explore varied career paths. During a typical trek, students tour the office, talk to Stanford alumni about their work, and learn about internship & employment opportunities. Visit the BEAM Treks website to learn more.

3) Employer Connections Events: Have your student learn about different industries and begin connecting with employers at 35+ events, including career fairs, industry mixers, and panels.

4) SAM: Encourage your student to learn from Stanford alumni. We have thousands of alumni who've volunteered to mentor Stanford students, and provide insight into their industries. Visit Stanford Alumni Mentoring to learn more.

5) Advice from the Pros: Every quarter, we invite alumni to share a behind-the-scenes perspective on their daily work in the areas of healthcare, media/entertainment, marketing/communications and more.

6) Expert-in-Residence: We bring the experts right to the Farm! Each quarter, we invite an industry expert for a career intensive that simulates real work scenarios. From finance to arts to social impact, students get a hands-on feel for a specialized field.

7) Labs: Labs are an interactive type of meetup, where we give students the opportunity to work on a specific document, such as a resume or cover letter, or a project with assistance and immediate feedback from their Career Coaches.

9) Industry Specialists: The Industry Specialist team is dedicated to increasing student-employer connections on campus. Consultants offer appointments to help students understand more about employers and their field of interest.

8) Career Coaching Appointments: Career Coaching is available for students to meet with their assigned Career Educator from the Communities team. Students may request an appointment through Handshake to cover interests and goals, assessments, career opportunities, making connections, preparing for interviews, and more.

10) Know thyself: We offer self-assessments that help students clarify their interests, develop a professional vocabulary, and give them a starting point for your career exploration. Our self-assessments include the Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI), Strong Interest Inventory (SII), and StrengthsQuest.

Don’t forget to inform yourself about the multitude of paths to meaningful work and types of work Stanford students find by checking our first destination survey data about where Stanford students go after they graduate.