As the first group mentoring pilot comes to an end, we look back on its success and what participants really thought of this new and innovative way of bringing mentoring into the classroom.
Future Ready Mentoring at the University of Westminster offers students and recent graduates the chance to learn from industry professionals and enhance their employability through long or short-term career mentoring. The wider programme has been running since 2010 and supports over 1,000 students each year.
This Autumn, the Mentoring Team piloted group mentoring, a brand new branch of Future Ready Mentoring, within the School of Management and Marketing. As part of the pilot, all students in their final year on the Business Management BA Honours or Business Management (Marketing) BA Honours courses were given the opportunity to benefit from three group mentoring sessions which took place on campus during timetabled teaching.
Each mentoring session was designed to focus on three themes; ‘Understanding who you are’, ‘Overcoming challenges or barriers in our careers’ and ‘Building resilience and self-care’. These topics allowed the students to identify their strengths and weaknesses, develop leadership skills, as well as resilience and the ability to learn from constructive criticism.
Being able to hear from mentors who acted as true role models allowed students to grow in confidence and gain a sense of what it might be like to work within particular industries.
Overall, the pilot was a success with more than 300 students attending at least one group mentoring session and over 40 mentors generously volunteering their time to support this new initiative.
Talking about their experience, final year Business Management BA student Diana-Maria Marin said: “The mentoring experience opened my eyes to possible career pathways that maybe before I wasn’t even considering. It also taught me how to give constructive criticism and how the actual work environment works. Thank you for this valuable opportunity.”
Naseem Joban, Senior Lecturer and EDI lead in the School of Management and Marketing added: “Our experience of providing group mentoring for our students has been so worthwhile! It has been one of the most amazing experiences of collaboration, goodwill, and effective teamwork that I have witnessed. The students have loved it! The approach taken by the alumni and mentors maps onto the concepts we are trying to encourage in our students in this module: cooperation, concern for others and compassion. These are some real-life examples of the new leadership approach which were so respectfully shared by all the mentors involved.”
Looking forward, the Mentoring Team are currently planning a further two group mentoring pilots to take place in the New Year for those students in their final year of the Business Information Systems BSc Honours and Psychology and Counselling BSc Honours degree programmes.
To support Westminster students through career mentoring, sign up on the University of Westminster website.
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