Remembering Your Previous Mentoring Experiences

The purpose of this exercise is to get you to remember your previous mentoring experiences, from your earliest mentoring experiences to your more recent ones.  Please take a few minutes to makes notes along the two timelines --one for when you were being mentored; the second for when you were a mentor--adding details as you remember them.  Reflect on the different ways that mentoring relationships form; what you enjoyed when in a mentoring relationship; what may have gone wrong and been better. Then please share details about these two exercises with one another.

1. Mentor Timelines

List all of your previous mentoring experiences. For each one, list the approximate year and the type of mentoring experience you had as a mentee and as a mentor.

Experience being a mentee:

      Approx. Years                                        Type of Mentoring Experience

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

Experience being a mentor:

      Approx. Years                                        Type of Mentoring Experience

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

2. Mentor Roles

Reflect upon your past mentoring relationships and how well you did with forming connections based upon the different ways that mentors and mentees might connect with one another.  How well do each of these roles fit with your previous mentoring relationships? 

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Teacher

The goal as a mentor-teacher is: a) to improve the research proficiency and overall professional development of your mentee and b) to be their safe soundboard for ideas. 

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Advocate

The goal as a mentor-advocate is to improve the self-confidence, social network, and sense of community of your mentee.

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Advisor

The goal as a mentor-advisor is to be trustworthy, caring, supportive, and interested in the well-being of your mentee.

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Assessor

The goal as a mentor-assessor is:  a) to be analytical and help my mentee explore their strengths and weaknesses and b) to be gently critical to encourage them to reach for high, yet attainable, expectations for their performance. 

Given Your Above Responses, Answer Three Questions:

The Fluidity of Mentoring Relationships.  We’ve all been mentors, and we’ve all been mentees; and sometimes these roles are fluid as we each have something to learn from a person, and something to teach that same person. 

Question:  Do you feel that you’ve had fluid mentoring relationships?  Please explain.

The Different Types of Mentoring Relationships.  There are all kinds of ways to be mentored, and different types of mentoring relationships that form (i.e., what you need to learn, and do, to be marketable; opportunities to expand your thinking about career options; friendships that unexpectedly form, etc.).

Question:  What kinds of mentoring have you experienced?  What kind of mentor are you?  What kind of mentee are you?  (See the ‘Reflecting on Different Mentor Roles’ exercise).

The Benefits/Costs to Mentoring.  We’ve all had mentoring experiences that have worked, and we’ve all had mentoring experiences that didn’t work.  Hopefully you’ve had more good mentoring experiences than bad ones!  Think back to how you’ve benefitted from some mentoring experiences, but not so much from others. 

Question:  What made the good mentoring experiences so good?  What made the bad mentoring experiences so bad?