Mentorship FAQs

The transition to campus life often means uprooting yourself and joining a new community, which is a challenge for anyone starting college. A peer mentor provides you with insider info on how to connect with other students, build relationships with your professors, succeed at college-level academics and other hints, like where to find Old Town’s best ice cream, how to shop for your first apartment or which local businesses offer the best student discounts. 

The College of Business Career Management Center uses Rams Connect, a platform that facilitates connections between mentors and mentees. Students create their profile indicating their career interests and goals and the topics in which they are seeking support and/or mentoring.

Your mentor is there to share their personal experience and serve as a sounding board as you explore your ideas. Mentees often focus on topics as wide-ranging as how to acquire specific skills, affirming personal values in the workplace, leadership development, navigating organizations or seeking feedback. Mentors bring deep experience to the relationship and are eager to help you prepare for a successful career.

Not at all. While it helps to have a general understanding of your broadest career goals, your mentor can answer questions about opportunities and expose you to career directions you might not have considered. 

Although mentors commit to forging a relationship with their mentees for the duration of a semester, connections often develop a rapport, and both parties may find it beneficial to continue their relationship outside of the scope of the mentoring program. If you’re interested in maintaining regular contact with your mentor, speak with them about extending the mentor-mentee connection.

There is no cost!

Relationships with your mentee don’t bloom overnight, and first-year students’ needs evolve as they settle into their first semester. In order to provide the level of support needed for the Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Program to have a lasting impact, mentors should prepare to meet with their mentee for at least three hours each week. Many of our mentoring connections find they meet more frequently than that as both parties find meaning in the relationship.

Peer-to-peer mentors must be in their junior or senior year, active in groups and events in the campus community and have maintained a GPA of 3.0 or better. They should also be able to commit to three hours each week to foster a strong relationship.

Interested in becoming a peer mentor? Apply to become a mentor at the Peer-to-Peer Mentoring web page. 

Anyone can be a mentor whether a professional, alumni or community member we welcome any mentors willing to provide honest feedback.