The Mentee Role:
The mentoring process is a two-way street where everyone has their own role. This will require you – the mentee – to be proactive and take responsibility. This means selecting a mentor, establishing and maintaining contact with them and setting up meetings. Your role as a mentee includes:
· Being on time
· Establishing goals based on your needs
· Being prepared
· Being an active listener
· Maintaining confidentiality
· Recognising the importance of your mentor’s time
What are the benefits of being mentored:
· The opportunity to get guidance for another student that knows their way around
· Having a non-judgmental person listen to you
· A safe space for worries and concerns to be discussed and for solutions/plans to be formulated
· Mentors can help you get the most out of your university experience, they offer the chance to speak to someone who is more experienced than you and to gain helpful insight into what you need to do to achieve and succeed in your research degree.
The First Meeting:
Below are some suggestions of things you may wish to discuss in your first meeting with your mentor.
Acceptable times and venues for meetings and calls
· Discuss where and when you will meet
· Each party should point out any restrictions on times and places
· If meeting face to face always meet in a public place
Confidentiality
· Clarify that you both understand issues of confidentiality within the mentoring relationship and recognise the exceptions to this as set out in the PGR Peer Mentoring Handbook.
Contact details
· Exchange details of how you wish to be contacted
· Agree whether you will be in contact with each other outside of your meetings
Get to know each other
You may want to share some information about yourself, such as:
· Your educational and/or family background
· Your research interests
· Your career and long-term goals
· Why you wanted to have a mentor
Note taking
· Both mentors and mentees are expected to complete records of the meetings, if anything confidential comes up, make sure you discuss how this should or should not be recorded
Plan of action
· Discuss your objectives for the mentoring relationship (refer to your Personal Development Log)
The Sheffield Hallam PGR Peer Mentoring Meeting Record is a useful framework for these discussions and to capture what you agree.