The energy in the room was after The Game was palpable. STEM graduate students, worn-out from their long days of working in lab, gathered around to participate in the Who You Are Matters! game – an interactive personal and professional development experience. It was inspiring to see such brilliant minds being brought to life through meaningful conversations. Student’s honored each other’s stories, explored possibilities for further development, and provided feedback to move each other towards their individual goals. It was truly an entire weekend workshop, facilitated in just 2-hours!

Not only were student’s inspired to take meaningful actions towards their individual goals, they experienced genuine connection – a rare opportunity in their busy lives. After playing with her group, computer scientist Gareth Halladay shared, “It was so inspiring to connect with each of you on a deeper level and realize that we all share common experiences and go through our own seasons as graduate students”. Another student reflected, “I just love that we got to encourage each other to go out and achieve what we want in life”.

In an environment that is constantly pushing for more, taking time to be with one another, to connect and collaborate, is invaluable to achieving greater successes.  Click here to learn more about how you can be trained to facilitate the Who You Are Matter’s experience. There is simply no substitute for the power of peer connection and encouragement.

Student’s pictured here are participants of Colorado State University’s GAUSSI Program – a transdisciplinary graduate training program consisting of extra courses, professional development opportunities, and mentoring and seminars in fields of large scale biological data analysis.