Even though I’m only a year above my mentee there has been so much information that I can give because I learned it in my first year so I’m a bit wiser than I give myself credit for.
Mei and I have gotten closer in my time mentoring her so it doesn’t feel as stiff when we have our meetings together. I have also enjoyed watching her grow more comfortable with college and explore more options in terms of her degree and what she wants to do after she finishes college.
Mentoring has contributed to my professional development in a multitude of ways, the biggest being the help my mentor has given me in terms of graduate school assistance and the ability to utilize her as a resource in my academic career. My mentor has also given me a role model to look up to because she is in my field of study and I'm able to culturally identify with her.
With my mentee, mentoring has allowed me to be able to pass down the information that I have learned to make my mentee's adjustment to college easier.
My expectations have been shaped because now I am inspired to learn more about campus resources and take advantage of them so I can be even more of a help to my mentees in the future. I also look forward to growing professionally so that I can feel more confident about giving professional advice.
In the beginning, I didn't meet with my mentor for the first semester of this school year due to a series of very unfortunate events. Although it was very challenging because I had a lot of questions to ask and I was excited to meet her one on one, I instead focused on being more flexible with the nature of our meetings and also using the time to narrow down the questions that I had for her. Instead of meeting in person, we have opted for Zoom calls currently, because they fit our schedules a lot better. I have also started making a list of questions for all of our meetings so that I can have clarity.