‘TAP’ into your potential
Contributed by: Wayne Sallee, vice president of programming
Torch of Academic Proliferation (TAP) is a two-tier platform organization; we focus primarily into academia, making strong students even better, and also providing internship and employment opportunities towards both undergraduate and graduate level students. As a graduate-level student myself, I found it very frustrating to finish my bachelor’s degree and then hit a brick wall shifting into industry. I had soon realized that the job industry was overly-saturated with bright eagerly young individuals trying to start their careers, and make a personalized impact. It is difficult enough to maintain a level of focus, working towards academic goal achievement, and then have to re-exhaust yourself, after you graduate, in trying to present yourself as an ideal candidate for a company. Luckily, I had inside leverage; I had an “ace” up my sleeve that nobody else did; I had a mentor.
Brian Stephens, associate professor of biology & biotechnology, is one of UHCL’s hard-working, extremely down-to-earth, community involved professors. He helped me do something not many others did; he listened, and then he helped me formulate a game-plan. Stephens encouraged me to enroll in graduate school and pursue my plans even farther; a decision that turned out to be one of the most rewarding decisions pertaining towards academia, and industry, that I had invested in. You see Stephens was right, my first semester in my graduate studies I received an internship opportunity to work with the engineering department at Texas Children’s Hospital, this in-return led to research at University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), and has led to my overall growth in both industry and applicable learning. He showed me the value of having a supportive mentor in your corner. Do not misunderstand my point, he did not do the work for me; however, he opened a huge door for me and I took every advantage of it. In return, it opened another door, then another.
This is what TAP is successfully engineered for; I do not want you, the student, to encounter the adversity I struggled coming out of university, as a graduate. TAP is designed to make you a more proficient student, consequently a better leader, naturally a better person, and then provide you with real-time internships, and/or employment opportunities. It is a “no seek-reward” program; as in, I seek nothing from you, other than providing you with career leverage, or options. TAP would only ask that you successfully help those coming up after you. I designed this program to be optimally self-facilitating, and then expansion of that self-facilitating model moving forward. So look in the mirror, think deep; if you believe in complacency, then TAP does not believe in you. However, if you are an individual that wants to caudle those academic interests, ignite that leadership fire, acquire industry experience, and most importantly proliferate that model into the future… TAP WANTS YOU!!!
