Reflection on being a mentor

(A few months ago in a training session as a student ambassador)

I’ve done academic tutoring, but I’ve never done mentoring before. So I felt that I learned a lot from the mentoring exercise. Following the mentoring session, my mentee was asked by the coordinator regarding our discussion. Basically, the questions were about how well I carried out the conversation in a mentoring manner. According to my mentee, I was able to put her at ease at the start and the meeting had a positive feeling to it because her first impression of me was friendly and approachable. And by asking some personal questions about family and interests, I was able to build a rapport with her and led her to open up about issues relating to her goals, plans on progression and achievement. I also made sure that I listen to everything that she’s saying and that I respond to her through my gestures like nodding. But when she raised issues related to some difficulties and barriers that hinder her to pursuing with HE like financial problems and peer pressure, I gave her some insights and possibilities that she might want to consider in order to address such difficulties. In support, I was able to share some personal experiences with her that could possibly talk her into really thinking about these possibilities.

On the other hand, some of the areas that I need to improve on as a mentor, as pointed out by my coordinator, is my confidence and ability to make conclusions at the end of the session. Honestly, I had a difficulty dealing with the specific details of the problem of the mentee, which involved the UK educational system, because I wasn’t familiar with the system. So personally, I think I would have to at least familiarize myself with the system.

Based from my own experiences, I believe that a mentor can meaningfully have a great impact on another person’s life. And for an effective mentoring, it is important to devote one’s time and energy to build a relationship with the mentee. A good mentor must be fair, open-minded, an active listener, patient, encouraging, and committed. At times, a mentor might need to set aside some interests to focus on the interests of the mentee.