According to the New York Daily News, at least 40 percent of college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. For the mother of a college student, this is quite a disturbing thought. How will our children have the opportunities that we have had? What will it take for them to move ahead? What will give them the edge that they need to be successful? Do they need a mentor in their field of business or profession?

Forbes magazine contributor and Ivy Exec owner, Elena Bajic, believes in the idea of a mentoring wholeheartedly, so in 2012, she started a mentorship program as part of her business. She reveals that her own mentors "are the first people I turn to when I face business ups and downs, am forced to make difficult tradeoffs to ensure company survival, or need strategic perspective."

I was lucky enough to meet my mentor when I was in physical therapy school. It was in the spring of my first year and I was working hard and doing well, but I was getting tired of the coursework with no patient care. I hadn't gone to school to just learn theory; I wanted to take care of people who needed my help.

Thank goodness, right around that time I had a course with a young professor, and I knew immediately that he did the kind of work I wanted to do. He loved our profession and he was passionate about his patients. His classes were practical and personable, and he talked often about what it was like to be a physical therapist in the clinic. I was energized and I suddenly saw what I could be.

For the next two years, I would take classes from him and I would learn everything I could from him. He believed in our class, all 60 of us. He worked hard to make sure we knew it, too. It was incredible to have someone like that believe in all of us. It made you think you could do great things.

So then, an incredible thing happened. My professor opened up his own clinic and I was lucky enough, when I graduated, to be the first person he hired in his outpatient orthopedic and sports physical therapy office. I was thrilled. I left my home in Maryland and everything I was sure of to join his dream because he believed in me.

The time frame I worked for him would shape so much of who I was and how I practiced physical therapy. In fact, because of him, almost 2 1/2 years later, I would step out and open my own physical therapy practice, with all the things I learned from him. He was so proud of me and 30 years later, he still is. I still talk with his wife and him to this day, and they always bless me with their strong belief in who and what I am as a person and a physical therapist. They are a great reminder of what it means to be a mentor, and I am thankful that he took the time and energy to believe in me.

Sheree DiBiase, PT, and her staff can be reached at Lake City Physical Therapy, (208) 667-1988. She would like to challenge you to become a mentor for someone, so you can honor the person who mentored you.