{"id":236614,"date":"2025-10-21T07:15:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T11:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=236614"},"modified":"2025-10-21T10:14:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T14:14:27","slug":"meet-the-undergraduate-stanley-lu-26-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/10\/meet-the-undergraduate-stanley-lu-26-bus\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Undergraduate: Stanley Lu \u201826 (BUS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

First-generation college students\u00a0face unique challenges, from applying to schools, to navigating campus life, to preparing for next steps after graduation.\u00a0Stanley Lu \u201826 (BUS), a senior majoring in management, knows this firsthand.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a first-generation student myself, and all my siblings are too\u00a0\u2013 so I know the specific troubles we face, and that they aren\u2019t\u00a0talked\u00a0about often enough,\u201d says Lu. \u201cI want to do my part to help other first-gen students succeed. Especially when it comes to job seeking, first-gen students may not have the same amount of support that other students have, or the same network, or the same\u00a0financial resources.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lu is spending his senior year as the DEI Intern for the\u00a0<\/span>First-Generation Students Affinity Community<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at UConn\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(the \u201cCareer Center,\u201d for short).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Career Center offers\u00a0numerous\u00a0resources for UConn students.\u00a0Professional staff can help\u00a0refine resumes and cover letters, and help with interview prep.\u00a0Student interns, like Lu, can also provide invaluable support\u00a0from a student perspective, especially through educational programming.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lu is especially dedicated to promoting\u00a0accessible, high-impact career-building experiences for students, like \u201cmicro-internships.\u201d For these projects, students are hired by companies on a\u00a0very short-term basis \u2013 often to complete one or two major tasks.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While such opportunities are competitive, they\u00a0are a boon to students, allowing them to get a taste of work in many different fields to see what they gravitate towards.\u00a0Additionally, Lu notes, micro-internships are typically paid, making them especially beneficial to students who are working to support their own education.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good opportunity for students to build on their resumes if they don\u2019t think they\u2019re ready for a full-time internship yet,\u201d says Lu. \u201cIf\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0not sure if\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0going to enjoy whatever career path\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0going down,\u00a0maybe they\u00a0can just try it out, and get hands-on experience before deciding.\u00a0And when they apply for future internships or jobs, they can then talk\u00a0in their cover letters and interviews\u00a0about how\u00a0they have already developed some of these skills.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of his work with the Career Center, Lu has\u00a0given presentations to various groups on campus, such as the\u00a0<\/span>First-Gen Society<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the First-Gen House\u00a0Learning Community.\u00a0He is currently working on a blog for the Career Center specifically about micro-internships, and\u00a0wants to start offering more targeted presentations on the topic as well.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not content to work only from his own experience, Lu is also engaged in research exploring\u00a0the challenges first-generation students face, and creative solutions other universities have developed to help support this community. At the University of Oklahoma, for example, he found\u00a0a helpful glossary of terms related to campus life, financial aid, and professional development.\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0currently working on developing a similar document tailored specifically to the UConn community.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0gearing it towards first-generation students, but it will be accessible to everyone,\u201d he says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lu first got involved with the Career Center from the other side \u2013 as a student user of its services. When he first applied for\u00a0the School of Business in his sophomore year, he says, he was unsure about the process, and \u201cjust threw together a resume and cover letter and submitted it.\u201d\u00a0After he was rejected, he was determined to\u00a0\u201cuse all my resources\u201d in his next attempt. He attended various info sessions at the Career Center and had his resume and cover letter workshopped by the professional staff. On his second try, he was rewarded with acceptance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, when he saw the opening for his job position at the Career Center, he was eager to apply and pay it forward.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m someone that\u2019s very interested in supporting underrepresented people and making sure everyone has the same access to\u00a0resources \u2013 and is aware of all the tools they have available,\u201d says Lu.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As he looks toward his graduation, Lu is exploring roles in human resources or career counseling,\u00a0building on\u00a0his experience at the Career Center.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI love helping people hone their skills and\u00a0educate\u00a0them on what employers are looking for,\u201d he says. \u201cAlso, after they\u2019ve landed the job, I am also passionate about supporting people\u00a0and helping them prevent burnout and practice resilience.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Month of Discovery<\/em><\/h3>\n

October is the\u00a0Month of Discovery<\/a>, when undergraduates are introduced to the wealth of research and innovation opportunities at UConn. This month, enjoy profiles of outstanding undergraduate innovators on UConn Today, attend a full slate of programming on campus and online, and register for\u00a0Discovery Quest<\/a>\u00a0to launch your undergraduate experience to new heights.<\/em><\/p>\n

Students interested in learning more about research and innovation opportunities at UConn can check out the series of events offered as part of the Month of Discovery. The\u00a0Experience Innovation Expo (Monday, Oct. 27)<\/a>\u00a0at the Werth Institute is a great opportunity to get inspired and discover the wide range of programs for entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity at UConn.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supporting first-generation students at UConn\u2019s Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":236616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2649,156,2076,1862,99,2235,2306,2458],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2413],"class_list":["post-236614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blue-pride","category-profile","category-research","category-busn","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-voices","category-undergraduates"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 05:28:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236663,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236614\/revisions\/236663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/236616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236614"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=236614"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=236614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}