When South Bend native Olivia Portolese was just a kid at summer camp, she dreamed of one day becoming a doctor. Like all good campers, she knew what she’d have to do first: be prepared.
Before arriving on IU’s campus as a pre-med student, Portolese carefully mapped out her college plan. “I already had my med school picked out and knew where I wanted to do my residency,” she said.
It didn’t take many chemistry classes, though, for her to realize that she was following the wrong map.
“That’s when things really started to spark”
After another summer at camp – this time as a supervisor to camp counselors – Portolese returned to Bloomington with a new major and a new plan. She started studying recreational therapy but found she still didn’t enjoy the coursework as much as she’d hoped – that is, until she signed up for a required management course.
“That’s when things really started to spark,” she said. “I was able to combine management theory with my own personal experiences to really illustrate the concepts.”
Portolese met with an academic advisor at the O’Neill School who pointed her toward Human Resources Management. At last, she’d found her path.
“It’s built for relationships”
Right away, Portolese was drawn to the relational aspect of her new major. She jumped into the human resources student association, HRA-IU, and started meeting with peers, faculty, and practitioners in her new field.
“I have a deep passion for learning, but the classroom hasn’t always been the most effective place for me to do that. I’ve benefitted a lot from front-line conversations and job talks,” said Portolese. “Through HRA-IU, I’ve had many hands-on ways to connect with wonderful professionals.”
Asked what she enjoys about the human resources management field, Portolese said, “I’m an empathetic person, but I’m also very analytical. I love taking data and building things out of it. The perfect place for me to combine those analytical skills and empathy is HR. Not only do you look at real-life metrics and data, but you also have to look at their impact – what it does to employees.”
Portolese also appreciates that so many of her professors teach from their own professional experience. “What makes our program unique is that we don’t just focus on the linear thought process. So many of the things we study are from real life and involve many different facets of business. Approaching learning in this way has really paved the way for my professional development.”
Professional development has not been her only focus, however. Portolese has also developed a strong network of friends through her classes and her work with O’Neill’s Career Hub. “O’Neill is not a transactional school,” she said. “It’s built for relationships.”
The right professional toolkit
Though the former camper’s path to HR included a few detours, Portolese has been able to cover a lot of territory. She was elected President of HRA-IU as a rising senior and recently passed the SHRM-CP exam, which will enable her to enter the job market after graduation as a certified human resources management professional.
“I’m really proud that even though I joined my major so late in the game, I was still able to participate in so many different opportunities to build my professional repertoire,” she said.
Portolese also successfully completed an internship with a global firm headquartered in Baltimore. Working in talent development, she became the point of contact for revitalizing their global, corporate retail onboarding content, which affects about 14,000 employees. She was also one of three interns selected to host a panel discussion with the company’s CEO about corporate strategy on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Portolese is not intimidated by the responsibility that entails. By combining the managerial skills she developed as a camp supervisor with the analytical skills she developed at O’Neill, she is confident that she has the right professional toolkit to draw from. “I’ve learned that people are people. Managing them is different than supporting them. I’ve had to learn how to have the proper impact.”
Though Portolese doesn’t know exactly where her professional path will lead after graduation, she does know how she feels: prepared.
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