Connect Program | Working with Mentors

Before meeting with your Faculty Guide or early in the connection, take time to think about what you hope to gain from your experience. That way, when you do meet with your Faculty Guide, you can share your thoughts! This is an important exercise because it will help you to shape the program experience and your time working with your Faculty Guide. Your Faculty Guide will also have a better understanding of how they can best support you.

• What are some of the reasons that led you to college?
• What made you interested in having a faculty guide?
• Are there skills you hope to develop or experiences you hope to gain in college?
• What aspects of college do you want more information on?
• What are your strengths? What are areas you want to develop?
• What might be helpful to share about your life outside of college so they can best support you?

After you learn the name of your Faculty Guide, you will want to email them to briefly introduce yourself and schedule a time to meet. When reaching out to your Faculty Guide the first time, here are a few things to include:

• Share who you are (including your name, pronouns*, major, and year).
• Briefly identify what you hope to gain from this experience.
• Your schedule to identify a time to hold your first virtual meeting.

*Pronouns are important because they let everyone around us know how we identify our gender, so others don’t make assumptions (and we don’t make assumptions about others based on names or appearance). Examples of pronouns include she/her, he/him, they/their.

Below is a sample email that you may use that includes the information above.

Dear Professor,

I hope you are well! My name is [your full name], and I am a [your major] in my [your year] at UIC. I am super excited to work with you this semester and appreciate your support. This semester, I hope to work on [name one or two goals you have. Or you can skip this part if you are not sure!]. I am available to meet on [provide options, both dates and times]. Please let me know if any of these options may work for you. Thank you again, and I look forward to connecting!

Warmly,

[your name with pronouns]

Email Signature

When you first meet, it is important to spend time on introductions. Learning about each other will help you feel comfortable working together and establish a genuine connection that will allow you to get the most from your experience and learn as much as possible from your Faculty Guide. Sharing information about yourself will also help the Faculty Guide better support you and steer you toward different opportunities, resources, and services that align with your interests and needs. Think about details about yourself that you feel comfortable sharing and give the Faculty Guide a sense of who you are and what is important to you in your college journey. You will also want to think of some questions to ask the Faculty Guide. You can refer to their mini profile for ideas or use the resource below.

For ideas on what information to share about yourself and questions you can ask, access the document below.

• Example questions to guide your introductions

In any professional partnership, it is important to have a conversation about expectations and what it needed to make the experience productive and positive for everyone involved. Be prepared to have a discussion with your Faculty Guide where they will talk to you about working together in this program. As a student mentee, some expectations for working with a Faculty Guide may include:

Working with a Faculty Guide is a partnership. 

• Make sure to meet your Faculty Guide halfway – you will get out of the experience what you are willing to put in. The role that Faculty Guides play in your mentoring journey is up to you. They can only support you as much as you allow them.
• Treat this experience as a learning opportunity and ask questions when they arise.

Be consistent in your communication and follow-through.

• Create a communication plan, including how and when communication will occur and what response times should look like.
• Identify a schedule and format for check-ins.

One of the primary ways your Faculty Guide will mentor you is in goal setting. Mentors can support your growth and development in many ways, so your goals can reflect your interests and needs as a student in LAS.

To identify goals, the first step is to think about what you hope to accomplish this academic year and gain from the college experience.

If you need help thinking of some ideas to explore with your faculty mentor, review the resource below which covers the following areas:

• Academic Success and Course Management Strategies
• Research Engagement
• Graduate and Professional Schools
• Career and Professional Development
• Campus Involvement and Community
• Wellness and Mental Health

Once you have identified areas of interest, you will be ready to take the next step of creating goals to work on in the Connect Program. This will set future meetings up for success and provide structure to your program experience.

• Focus Areas and Example Topics

Refer to the Early Meeting Form and revisit the section where you documented areas of interest that you would like to work on with your Faculty Guide. Spend time reflecting these interests and why they are important to you and support your growth and development. Aim to have at least two areas that are most important.

With your interests in mind, the next step is to turn the top two into goals that you can work on with the help of your Faculty Guide. To create goals, you will want to use the SMART Goals method.

S=Specific, M=Measurable, A=Action-oriented, R=Relevant, and T=Time-oriented.

Once you have your goals in mind, the next step is to make a plan. To do this, you will want to break down your main goals into small steps. This will help you think about the steps you need to take to reach your larger goal and will help you stay on track.

With a plan in place for achieving a goal, the next step is to consider possible resources or supports that will help you reach your goals. For ideas and inspiration, refer to the resource cards. The cards match the focus areas used to help you brainstorm areas of interests to pursue in this experience and provide information on relevant resources, tools, and opportunities.

• Academic Success and Course Management Strategies
• Research Engagement
• Graduate and Professional Schools
• Career and Professional Development
• Campus Involvement and Community
• Wellness and Mental Health

As you create goals and the steps to take to reach each goal, spend time thinking about how your Faculty Guide can you support you in this journey. How can they help you reach your goals? Ask them for their input as well.

An important part of the goal setting conversation is thinking about how you will track your progress. In the Goal Setting Form, there is a section for logging notes. Be sure to use this to document the progress you make as you complete steps for each goal. Logging your notes will help you see your progress and keep you motivated. Keeping notes also matters because it will give you updates to share with your Faculty Guide. Discuss with your Faculty Guide the best way to share your progress. That way, they can continue to be a support as you work toward your goals.

Review your goal setting worksheet and reflect on why these goals were important to you. Think about how they support your growth and development and how you will know you have achieved the goals. That is, what will success look like to you in your goal attainment journey?

Review the notes you logged as you worked toward your goals. Now, think about what successfully accomplishing your goal looks like to you and reflect on the following:

• Have you reached that goal?
• What were some of the challenges you encountered along the way?
• What did you learn from the experience?
• How did you overcome them?
• What have been some of your successes in this journey?
• How have they impacted you?

Given the goals that you set and what your ideal finish line for the goals will look like, what steps could you continue to take to get there? Or, if you feel that you have accomplished your original goals, what are new goals that you can create for yourself?

At the end of the mentoring experience, it is important to thank your faculty guide for their mentorship and the work they did to support you in the Connect Program. Remember, faculty guides all volunteer to serve in the program because they care about your growth and success, inside and outside the classroom. As you think about how to thank your faculty guide, reflect on your work together and include some specific and meaningful ways they served as a support.

Following your time in the Connect Program, it is helpful to maintain a connection with your Faculty Guide. Doing so will allow you to continue to receive guidance and support during your time in LAS and UIC. Discuss with your Faculty Guide, your interest in staying connected, some of the ways you hope to work with them and ask what the best way might be to continuing the mentor-mentee relationship. If the connection looks different than your time in the Connect Program, know that it is okay. It is common for connections to evolve and change. You can also ask your faculty guide for suggestions for new possible professors to connect with and bring into your college network as mentors. The more mentors you have, the greater the access you will have to resources, knowledge, and support. Now that you have successfully worked with a mentor and learned how to build a professional connection, use your skills and tools to keep expanding!

Even though your time in the Connect Program may be at an end for the year, don’t let that stop you from working toward your goals and setting new ones. Use the same goal setting sheet to continue your growth and development.