This Wednesday night I went to the Rose Café with Sam Beck, Social & Cultural Anthropologist – “A Dialogue with Students on Engaged Cornell”, unfortunately I got to the event I little late, but I am happy that I attended.
At one point of the talk one student asked Mr. Beck about how to get mentors during one’s college time. Mr. Beck was being very forthcoming that he think college advising is a failure, since the student usually don’t actively seek advising, and the faculty don’t have incentive to mentor a particular student, since mentoring someone is a big investment of time and energy. Someone in the audience commented that to let a faculty invest in the student, the student must invest in the faculty first. Now I totally agree with that point, I feel that for me personally, the faculty that I have been lucky to work with and have been benefited from are those who I invest a large amount of time getting to know in the first place. There is a professor in Johnson school who I found on Cornell website and reached out through email. We ended up having a one-hour conversation and I asked her many advice about going into finance and finding internship. Then she brought me on board with the undergraduate stock pitch competition and women investing conference, both are amazing events and I have learned some much from it, also making some great friends. In the future I will continue to do more of the work myself before expecting anyone would invest time in me.
Hi Sabrina, I also wanted to share about my experience regarding mentor-ship. I was fortunate to meet an alumni at my previous college through a scholarship program. He was assigned to be my mentor for one year. I ended up getting an internship at his company and was very supportive of me when I applied to transfer to universities. Even though, his official mentor-ship period is over he still gives me advice and support in my academics. It is great to have this kind of people who make a difference in others life. I agree that the initial action should come from the mentee in terms of explaining their goals and seeking out for advice and support… The experience I had with my mentor inspires me to be a very supportive and responsible mentor if I have the privilege to be one.