Flushing—Greeting old friends and former professors with smiles, dozens of alumni of Touro’s Lander College for Men returned to the college recently to share their professional experiences with current students. Lander College for Men hosted a three-day series with 14 career panels as part of its career services programming.
“Successful Lander College for Men alumni have an invaluable perspective, since they know from their own personal experience what they would like to have known while they were students. Students say this is one of the most helpful programs we offer, ” said Dr. Moshe Sokol, Dean of Lander College for Men.
Established in 2000, Lander College for Men is both a rigorous academic institution and a tight-knit community. The campus in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens offers a dual curriculum of intensive Torah study and a wide range of academic programs. Students major in professionally oriented disciplines.
For alumni, the panels are a way to contribute to the school and to maintain their connections. “I like to give back to Lander because I had a great experience here,” said Jordan Kaplan, a credit ratings analyst at Standard and Poor’s who is president of the Lander College Alumni Council and lives in Edison, New Jersey.
“That dozens of alumni take time from their very busy personal and professional lives to come back to campus demonstrates just how committed our alumni are,” said Rabbi Aryeh Young, Lander’s Director of Alumni Affairs, who organized the program.
Over subs, hot dogs and soft drinks, students peppered alumni with questions about their career paths, their college and graduate school experiences, and the lessons they learned on the job. After informal networking, the discipline-specific panels began.
At the finance panel, Kaplan advised students to focus on gaining meaningful experiences when they are starting out. “The salary is important, but experience matters most in your first job,” he said. The panelists also discussed how to use your network to build your career, what to highlight on a resume and how Lander prepared them for their careers.
Moshe Bedziner, a senior from North Miami Beach, waited for the medical panel to start. “I always wanted to be a doctor. I want to be able to help people,” he said. He volunteers in the emergency room at Jamaica Hospital.
Doctors in a range of specialties from pediatric neurology to emergency medicine shared their perspectives. Students learned that an entire semester of college is covered in just two weeks in medical school, and that their Lander education would leave them well prepared for this. “Lander’s dual curriculum built the habits that enabled me to be successful. I had classmates from Yale and Harvard who were overwhelmed by the work,” said Dr. Yitzchak Goldstein, a pathologist who graduated from Lander in 2006, went to medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is now a physician at Montefiore Medical Center.
Ari Glatt, an attorney at Nixon Peabody in Manhattan attended the University of Chicago Law School after graduating from Lander. “I love being an attorney, but the reality is that you have to go to a top law school or be at the top of your class if you want to work for one of the big firms,” said Glatt, who lives in Woodmere, Long Island. He discussed the different types of careers that lawyers pursue and fielded questions about LSATs and GPAs.
Lander prides itself on combining scholarship, career readiness and a commitment to Torah and mitzvos in a warm and supportive community. That’s what brought Ari Glatt back to campus last week. “I loved my time at Lander,” he said.
The Lander College for Men is an undergraduate division of Touro College, in service to the Jewish community. It provides students with an environment that produces ethical, mature and well-rounded professionals committed to scholarship and career growth. Dedicated to Touro’s mission of perpetuating the Jewish heritage, Lander College for Men prepares students to uphold the ideals of Torah and pursue positions of professional and communal leadership.
