What do mentors do?
Mentors provide general support overcoming obstacles to graduation and/or career exploration guidance. At registration, a student may select a mentor from our Career Mentor Corps for job exploration, or request to be assigned a mentor for college navigation support. If you would like to participate in the Career Mentor Corps, please indicate so on your application.
As a mentor, your primary job will be to create a trusting, sustained and consistent relationship. Within this space, you will e-mentor your student to identify goals, find information and follow-up on progress. You do not need specific knowledge of financial aid, counseling, or college processes and procedures. Instead, you will be the person to help guide your mentee to find solutions, self-advocate and persevere. Face-to-face connections with your mentee using video conferencing technology such as Zoom will replace in-person meetings. Most weekly check-ins will be conducted by email or text.
Mentors model career options.
Connecting education to career is the main reason students seek a mentor through The Mentoring Project. Our students have indicated that they don't see how their education will lead to a job. Because 80% of our students are first in their families to attend college, they don't have friends and family networks to turn to for career advice. Our mentors, many of whom overcame significant barriers to their own education, provide a critical role modeling education and career paths and encouraging students to stay enrolled. Students are able to browse our Career Mentor Corps to select mentors to meet with 1:1 to learn explore various industries and jobs.
Mentors listen to their mentee to clarify issues, help identify campus resources, encourage the student to access these supports and then follow-up weekly to check on progress. For example, mentors can suggest that the student meet with a financial aid advisor, complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and apply for independent scholarships, and emergency aid. A national survey found that not having enough money to pay for college followed by family commitments were the “major” factors preventing students from continuing their education.
Mentors encourage students to connect to campus and community resources.
Mentors impart specific skills needed for college graduation.
Research has show that regular coaching to support students to develop clear goals, guide them in connecting their daily activities to their long-term goals, support them in building aptitudes, including time management, self advocacy, and study skills, leads to a greater likelihood of graduation. Mentors will encourage students to self-advocate for themselves on campus, close achievement gaps and utilize support services.
Mentors explain college processes and procedures.
Low-income college students are less likely to find a mentor on campus. For example, the Strada-Gallup data found that 72% of white students found a professor as a mentor once in college, compared to 47% of racially underrepresented students. Similarly, first-generation students are less likely than students with a college-educated parent to have had a professor as a mentor. Through regular check-ins and follow-ups, mentors will provide their mentee the encouragement to use academic supports, engage in events, activities and services and find “go-to”people on campus to help achieve goals.
“In order to be a mentor, and an effective one, one must care. You must care. You don’t have to know how many square miles are in Idaho, you don’t need to know what is the chemical makeup of chemistry, or of blood or water. Know what you know and care about the person, care about what you know and care about the person you’re sharing with.”
— Maya Angelou
Why be a mentor?
Simply put, low-income students need support to stay in college! Mentors serve a critical role in helping students find resources, troubleshoot problems, and make decisions to avert the multiple and complex set of challenges that often lead to dropping out.
A 2015 survey commissioned by the Gates Foundation found the main obstacle to college graduation was financial need and that “most [students] work and go to school at the same and are not getting financial help from their families or the system itself. It is the stress of this juggling act that forces many to abandon their pursuit of a college degree.”
Financial need is a key obstacle, but so are other factors such as weak academic preparation, not understanding how to navigate or access college processes and procedures, confusion about degree pathways, and taking care of dependents. Issues such as fitting-in, food insecurity, and disability status make the equation more complex.
A mentor helps diminish these barriers by listening, providing perspective, connecting to resources, following-up, and demonstrating concern. Learn more about specific mentor goals and objectives.