Team

Who we are.  

The Ellie Block and Family Career Services Center at the Friedman School is committed to helping our students and graduates leverage their outstanding education to find impactful and fulfilling careers. Our career coaches leverage their many years of experience, career development training and practice, and industry and employer insights, to assist students and alumni. 

What we do. 

We provide holistic career education, planning, and job search support to engage students at each stage of their education, from incoming student to alumni. We empower students to leverage their educational experience and career ambitions and translate these into meaningful and impactful work over the course of their lifetimes. 

How we do it.

The Ellie Block and Family Career Services team achieves its mission by helping students and alumni:

  • Explore their interests, values, and experiences and consider how to connect these to the world of work;
  • Develop and hone key career and job development skills such as building relationships; creating a resume, cover letter, and professional online profile; practicing interviewing strategies and salary negotiation techniques; and 
  • Cultivate jobs, internships, and other professional opportunities through relationship development with employers and creating immersive events to facilitate student and employer connections. 

Friedman School alumni work in government and non-governmental agencies, as well as private organizations in the United States and throughout the world. Their work significantly impacts nutrition, food security, and sustainability, as well as health, wellness, environment, education, public policy, and other key sectors. It is our pleasure to be a resource and partner for students and alumni as their career develops at the Friedman School.

Sam McGurgan, MA

Director of Career Services

Samantha McGurgan is the Director of Career Services at the Friedman School’s Block Career Center. With a background in education, counseling and guidance, and systems thinking, Samantha has developed a deep understanding of what individuals need to succeed while devoting her career to building programs, courses, and pipelines that create access. As a Certified Gallup Strengths Coach, she is guided by a simple but powerful question: “What will happen when we think about what is right with people rather than fixating on what is wrong with them?” She coaches students to discover and lean into the talents that already make them exceptional, while working to remove the systemic barriers that too often stand in their way.

Prior to this role at Friedman, she worked in corporate as a Program Manager of Talent Development, where she gained perspective from the “other side” of the hiring table and a renewed passion for bridging academia and the world of work. Prior to that, she was an Associate Director of Career Services for the Friedman School and for the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Samantha holds a Master of Arts in Education, specializing in Counseling and Guidance in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she first learned the value of learning by doing. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Ecology from The Ohio State University.

Strengths: Futuristic Includer Activator Positivity Input

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Food Fun Fact

I lived in wine & agriculture country on California’s Central Coast for 5 years where I fell in love with the farm-to-table concept.