New mentee

Every year we academic staff are mentors to students, but there is also a mentoring system for staff. Katrien is my mentor, and a few years ago I had a lady who worked in the unit that teaches English to foreign students as a mentee. That was good! But when the year was over I went into survival mode, as then I was threatened with redundancy, and also struggled with RSI.

A while ago I was approached by the person organising these relationships. There was a lady in the new Medical School who wanted a mentor. Was I willing to take on that role? And I was.

It took a few attempts to meet up. There were some issues with misremembering the date or being called away to deal with an issue with a student. But then, after lecture I had given, we did meet. It was nice to make this lady’s acquaintance.

The Medical School is brand new. This is the first academic year that they actually have students. So this lady was quite new herself, and everything that went on in the school was happening for the first time. So everything had to be built from the ground up. That is a monumental task!

It was interesting to hear about that. The School of Ocean Sciences was founded well before I was even born. It's quite a different situation.

I didn't have the feeling I could help her with dealing with the sheet workload of having to do everything from scratch. But I did have the feeling I could give her a few pointers that would allow her to avoid making mistakes that I had made. That was quite satisfying. And she said it had been very useful to her.

It wasn't a long meeting; she had to get back to her work. I think we'll meet again in the not too distant future. It's nice to be able to make a difference to someone!

Still smelling of paint: the Medical School