Alumni Mentorship: Bridging Generations of Innovation and Insight

As a student at Grinnell College in the late 1980s, Melissa Koch ’90 was eager to learn from the experiences, trials, and errors of those who had come before her. She took advantage of every opportunity the College offered in this area, from job shadows and internships to networking with alumni.

“I was always fascinated by people's career stories,” she recalls. “How did you get to that place? What were the connective pieces between different parts of your career?” These early inquiries and the alumni who provided their insight and expertise helped guide Koch through her academic journey and into a successful career.

Today, Koch is a writer who creates nonfiction books for children and their teachers focused on making science and social justice personal and valuable to readers. Before recently moving back to Iowa to pursue writing full-time, she lived in Silicon Valley for 27 years where she designed award-winning learning technologies and out-of-school learning experiences that encourage youth and young women from diverse backgrounds to pursue their dreams in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

As someone who understands the significance of mentorship because of her own student experiences, Koch has been inspired to engage with current Grinnell students and offer her own unique perspective to those just beginning to shape their own futures. She has offered externships and job shadows that offer a glimpse into her diverse career, sharing her experiences working at organizations like Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) and start-ups, such as O’Reilly & Associates’ Global Network Navigator, the first graphical anything on the Internet.

“I think I’ve had one job that actually had a job description. Most of the time, I was hired to define ‘what are we building and why are we building it’ for new ventures in education,” she says. “I led teams of engineers, designers, and learning specialists to develop new educational technologies.”

Koch’s mentorship and guidance has proven transformative for Salif Sangare ’26, a studio art and sociology double major from New York. “Talking to Melissa gave me a clearer sense of what paths are available to me, especially in fields that combine creativity and technology,” he shares. “She helped me realize that it’s okay to explore and even to decide that something isn’t the right fit — that’s part of the process.”

Exploring Passions, Finding Direction

Koch is familiar with this kind of exploration, noting that early in her life she thought she might become a lawyer. However, after numerous job shadows with alumni in the field, she realized it wasn’t the right path for her. “Talking to one law student about their experience in law school after numerous job shadows with lawyers, I knew — this is not for me,” she recalls. “But those experiences helped me find my direction.”

Koch's career as a creative reflects her love of reading widely, talking with experts across fields, and trying things on to see what fits, an approach she encourages students to take. “One of the tools I use to set my direction I call ‘putting a stake in the ground.’ I declare my intentions to myself and to others,” she says. “At Grinnell, I realized that I wanted to create something new. The stake I put in the ground then was ‘I’m going to create something with a group of people that no one has seen before.’ That clarity of intention helped guide my career initially, and then that tool became part of a practice I used to define new educational technologies and programs.”

With a passion for mentorship rooted in her own experiences as a student, Koch feels a responsibility to give back to current students. “Grinnellians have a unique perspective on the world and what they owe to it,” she says. “It’s more than just a school connection — it’s a shared understanding of the world, and I think that makes the relationship between alumni and students special. Grinnell is a place where you don’t just learn for yourself; you learn to make the world a better place. Mentoring is one way to keep that spirit alive.”

Salif echoes this sentiment. “The Grinnell network isn’t just about career advice — it’s about seeing the bigger picture,” he says. “Melissa helped me understand not only what I want to do but why it matters.”