Mentoring

Many programs have mentoring opportunities housed in their departments. Reach out to your professors and unit heads to ask about these opportunities and express your interest in mentorship! 

Embarking on your first year of graduate school can be challenging, especially without a strong support system. That's why the Graduate College is launching the PeerLead Initiative – a program designed to connect first year UC graduate students with experienced graduate students who understand the journey. Apply to be a mentor or mentee today! Visit the PeerLead webpage to fill out a mentor/mentee interest form.

Graduate school provides you with the professional training to learn the knowledge and skills you need to be successful in your chosen discipline. You come to graduate school with your own unique research and career interests, and multiple individuals will need to support you in achieving your scholarly goals. Faculty play a critical role in your graduate education, and they will serve in a range of roles to support you along the way. 

This Mentoring Guide (pdf) from the University of Michigan will provide you with tips on finding multiple mentors, developing clear expectations, selecting and working with a dissertation chair, and more. 

In this free course, scientists from different backgrounds give concrete steps to building a mentoring network so you can be a more confident researcher and feel supported by your graduate school research community. You'll develop a detailed plan to complete your degree and meet your career goals. You’ll also learn evidence-based techniques and strategies for finding and building productive relationships with your primary research advisor(s), thesis committee, and other mentors during graduate school. By the time you're finished, you'll have completed a plan to build a research home to help you succeed in graduate school and beyond.

For more information, visit the iBiology: Build Your Research Community Course.

There are so many aspects to graduate school to successfully navigate and going through them in isolation only compounds the stress. For students who are interested, GradResources.org offers coach connections.

How It Works:

• Register. By filling out the Coach Request form.
• Partner. They partner you with a trained coach.
• Connect. You are invited to participate in speaker events and EQ skills seminars.
• Reach out if you want to connect with a local community group.