Lopes level up on workplace development skills

Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow

Legos are a young person’s game.

And sometimes, an engineer’s game, as it was for Nate Cottrell, director of engineering at KAEKO. He didn’t tote calipers, rulers or wrenches with him to Grand Canyon University to speak with College of Engineering and Technology students who were the first to go through a new program, Next Level Lopes.

Instead, he brought Legos to teach a lesson about communication.

Cottrell divided up the group of students for the Lego lesson. One group, the client, had to explain a building project using words alone to another group of students, the engineering team. That team wrote the instructions down and passed those written instructions to the next group, the architects, which drew out what the previous team had written. They delivered those drawings to the contractors, who constructed the building using Legos.

“It was kind of like a game of telephone, and obviously, the picture of what it was supposed to be was very different; it was eye-opening,” said Zachary Scheer, a software engineering student.

Added fellow Next Level Lopes participant and cybersecurity student Andrew Escamilla, “There was a lot of miscommunication there.”

Messages don’t always retain their original integrity as they move down the line of a chain of people, and communication can break down easily the more information is retold.

Escamilla learned in that Lego activity about “being able to actually communicate effectively and overcommunicating in order to get the objective completed. I learned that communication is such an important skill. It’s not often talked about.”

At Next Level Lopes, it was talked about, as were other nonengineering, nontechnical skills that go beyond calipers, computers and classroom know-how.

“Our President’s STEM Advisory Board (led by President Brian Mueller and the College of Engineering and Technology) mentioned that students weren’t having those soft skills, or whatever you want to call those skills, that are not necessarily taught in the classroom,” said Dr. Rob Loy, the college’s assistant dean of technology. “It’s, how do you collaborate? How do you prioritize things? … It’s things that are shared across a bigger professional setting that are a benefit for the organization – the business skills that go along with that.”

So Loy and his college partnered with the university's Career Services and Gena Goolsby, one of the College of Engineering and Technology's industry partners, to create Next Level Lopes, a boot camp of sorts for students to sharpen those soft skills, with the first cohort of the 11-week program – 19 students in all – celebrated during a completion ceremony on Monday.

Students who applied delved into professional development sessions taught by industry experts who instructed students not only on communication via Legos but how to give and receive feedback, emotional agility (leading through emotions), critical thinking and GCU Career Services' “Owning Your Career” session, which included mock interviewing and resume polishing.

The Legos activity seemed to be the students’ favorite, but Escamilla had another: a second communications exercise taught by Dustin Fennell, technical operations manager at Amazon Web Services. It was based on a personality tool called the DISC assessment, which stands for dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness. DISC helps individuals understand their own behavioral styles, motivations and stress triggers and how to relate to others.

It’s also used to improve communication between co-workers, often of different personality types.

“One person could be a leader, one person could be a communicator, another could be analytical …,” said Escamilla. “So it’s just being able to dial up and dial down (your own approach) in order to communicate with anyone.”

De'Andre Mangrum, a mechanical engineering major, said one lesson he learned is how important it is to make connections, and “don’t forget our parents,” he said.

He looked to his dad, who’s in the military and has connections to the racing world.

Mangrum wants to go into motorsports, a niche industry that doesn't exactly align with his major.

“With this (Next Level Lopes), I’ve been able to talk with more people and sync my skills,” he said.

Some other lessons:

Goolsby, a personal certified coach and co-founder of tagLeaders, was one of the industry professionals who led Next Level Lopes sessions. She saw Loy’s message looking for help on LinkedIn and jumped at the chance.

“I love developing people,” she said. "I feel like in corporate, a lot of people invest in their executives and their senior managers but not a lot of early talent. A lot of times, they’re just kind of like, ‘Start your job; figure it out.’

“But that’s when they (young talent) are so hungry for it.”

With Next Level Lopes, “They’re almost getting a sneak peek at the professional development skills that adults in the workforce are still developing.”

Escamilla took all those skills, particularly skills he learned from the GCU Career Services team, to land an internship with Western Alliance Bank. He found the employer on LinkedIn, a career tool emphasized during the program.

He also knew to ask his interviewer questions, he said, and when the interviewer saw where he was from? Voila, a connection.

“I feel like I wouldn’t have gotten my internship if not for Next Level Lopes,” Escamilla said.

The program has been such a success that it is being rolled out university-wide. This spring, it's being offered in the College of Arts and Media and the Colangelo College of Business. This fall, the colleges of Humanities and Social Sciences and Nursing and Health Care Professions are slated to be added.

The hope is to scale the program online, as well.

"Next Level Lopes is a great example of the partnership between colleges, Career Services and industry to enhance our students’ career readiness skills," said Aysha Bell, executive director of Career Services. "Through collaborative initiatives like Next Level Lopes, we are equipping students with practical tools, professional networks, and real-world experiences that position them for long-term success. We are excited to see this program expand and amplify its impact as it continues to grow and scale."

Three student workers are in the hiring process to join Next Level Lopes as program ambassadors – Scheer, Mangrum and Ethan Santhuff.

“We’re going to make sure everybody’s getting fed pretty much, getting what they need out of it, and for us, it gives us more experience,” Mangrum said.

“We did 10 weeks of this. We really put the hard effort into it,” Escamilla said of his Next Level Lopes experience and how invaluable it was. “… Being able to do this before getting into the workspace was so amazing. I’m so glad I got to learn this.”

Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected].

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