Ten Tips Assist Your Students in Identifying Mentors
Fi nancial-aid administrators can help their upcoming spring graduates and other students prepare for their future by helping them to identify mentors.
The USA Funds Life Skills® financial-literacy curriculum notes that mentors can help students set reasonable career expectations and provide personal, academic and career guidance. Students who have mentors are more likely to finish school, be academically successful, and obtain employment after graduation.
Students should be advised to look for mentors among:
- Faculty.
- Family friends.
- Older classmates.
- Community or business leaders.
- Campus administrators.
- Formal mentoring programs on campus.
Once they’ve identified good candidates for mentors, students can pursue any of the 10 most-common strategies for obtaining a mentor:
- Simply ask your prospective mentor to mentor you.
- Visit your prospective mentor during office hours.
- Discover personal and professional areas of common interest with your prospect.
- Ask your prospective mentor for advice on topics such as courses to take.
- Try to get close to your prospective mentor: Ask for advice about managing your personal and academic demands.
- Offer to be your prospect’s assistant.
- Do well in your classes — make sure the prospective mentor notices and appreciates your efforts.
- Seek out mentoring programs on campus.
- Let your prospective mentors know that you respect and admire them and that you would like to work with them.
- Be visible: Attend events that your prospective mentor also attends.
More information about helping students identify mentors, and other topics related to completing school and repaying education loans, is available in USA Funds Life Skills Module 4, “Take Control of Your Future — Finishing School and Repaying Your Loans.” USA Funds Life Skills is an educational program that helps equip postsecondary institutions to teach their students to manage their time and money wisely while they are on campus and after graduation.
USA Funds Life Skills materials are available for ordering online. For more information about USA Funds Life Skills, contact your debt-management consultant.
|