Avanade mentorship program graduate, Jasmine Coleman recently joined Avanade as an advanced analytics analyst, based out of the Seattle office.

“Through school and recently working here, I’ve realized that I absolutely love data,” says Jasmine, who studied mathematics at the University of Washington.

And she loves Avanade too. It was after her internship that Jasmine knew Avanade was the company she wanted to work for.

“The people here are hard-working and innovative, yet incredibly kind, supportive, and funny; they are the best teammates you could ask for!” She really appreciates how Avanade values their employees. “They understand that life happens, they provide support in challenging times, and even after my internship ended, they treated me like family. One day I brought my mom and dad into our building, and I’ll never forget how my friend described it as ‘introducing family, to family’—I could go on and on, but that’s why I joined Avanade,” recalls Jasmine.

Above all she appreciates the support she’s received from Avanade.

“Being recognized by a large company and being given a unique opportunity, made me have more faith in myself,” she says. “I remember trying to get through my last year of college, going from info session, to career fair, to tons of resume edits, just trying to land one interview. I was starting to feel hopeless and that my education wasn’t enough to help me find a career.” But when Avanade decided to invest in her, Jasmine felt certain she was on the right path after all.

Having a mentor has been a big boost. The Avanade mentorship program is part of our larger Avanade STEM Scholarship initiative which invests in the future of young women in the STEM disciplines and offers internships, mentoring and a support network to enable them to achieve their education and support their career growth. In the five years since the program began, we have supported 99 full STEM Scholarships and a further 40 mentoring relationships. The proof is in the pudding since to date, 10 STEM Scholarship Alumni have chosen Avanade to start their career—and we are happy to add Jasmine as our first mentee alumni to join us.

“It’s made me more confident. It’s easier to network with other employees when I can remind myself, I have a senior director as a mentor,” explains Jasmine. “I’ve learned that networking with high ranking people isn’t as daunting as I originally thought it would be. Sometimes networking is just going out to eat pad thai!”

As much as Jasmine enjoys working at Avanade and data, she realizes the importance of down time. So, when she hasn’t got her data cap on, you’ll find her snowboarding, reading mystery books and gaming.