Sign up to be a Mentor
For the academic year 2023-2024 please fill out the following form. A member of the executive team will contact you in late August with more information.
Your Role as a LINKS Mentor
At LINKS, our female and male mentors are sounding boards and sources of friendly, trusted, and honest advice in navigating the undergraduate and new graduate experience.
Tips for a Successful Mentorship Relationship
Mentorship is an intentional, reciprocal, and comfortable relationship with your mentee. The mentor-mentee pair must work together to build a relationship that is both successful for the mentee and allows for a fulfilling mentor experience. As many of you will be engaging as formal mentors for the first time, here are some thoughts to keep in mind:
- Be accessible, but practical: The essence of choosing to be a mentor is willingness to share your experiences and work with your mentee to support their success. This will require an appropriate level of communication and responsiveness. Setting mutual expectations around frequency of communication and accessibility during the first meeting will build a good foundation for the relationship to take shape.
- Share positively and constructively: The mentor-mentee relationship should leverage your increased level of work and life experience to help the mentee address topics in their less seasoned positions. Positive, can-do communication and thoughts will go a long way in providing necessary support. Being honest and constructive in parallel is key to providing valuable insight to your mentee.
- Pursue some self-reflection: Think deeply and objectively about your academic and professional experiences, the challenges and benefits they posed, and what worked well and what you would have handled differently in hindsight. Remembering how you may have handled challenging situations from several angles will be very helpful in building mentor-mentee rapport.
- Lean on your network: We don’t expect mentors to have the answers to everything. If you are unsure with how to handle a situation, feel free to connect your mentee to somebody in your personal network whom you think may add relevance to the conversation. You can also reach out to the LINKS team for tips.
- Act with discretion: Your mentees will count on you to keep your discussions anonymous and maintain the trust-based relationship that you are building. We request that all mentors maintain the privacy of their mentees and practice an appropriate level of discretion.