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By Katie Stinson
While it can be great to have a mentoring partner in proximity for your day-to-day tasks and activities, seeking a virtual mentoring partner outside of your bubble creates the opportunity for personal growth and new perspectives, for mentees and mentors alike.
MyMentor is the one-on-one guided virtual mentoring feature within the MyNRMN platform. What makes MyMentor different from other mechanisms of mentoring is that discussion prompts, focused on culturally aware mentoring, are provided to both mentor and mentee. This type of mentoring encourages growth for both the mentor and the mentee without the day-to-day distractions that often take precedent to mental health, personal attention, and empathy for others.
MyMentor connects mentors and mentees from across the country and different STEM disciplines. While it may be ideal to stay inside specific disciplines in day-to-day mentoring, the mentoring connections that thrive in MyMentor are those that match with someone outside of their bubble. This basic principle is also what drives successful research—most research projects include a variety of STEM professionals including scientists, data statisticians, and administrators. It takes all of their perspectives to put together a grant application, so why not apply this principle to personal growth as well?
When engaged in a MyMentor connection, mentors and mentees will receive a series of 19 goals containing discussion prompts. On average, connections spend around 30 minutes per week working through the goals over the course of four to five months. However, it’s up to the participants to decide the timeline of the connection as it can all be customized to meet each other’s needs.
To get started in MyMentor, simply login to your MyNRMN account and select MyMentor from the list of features. Mentors will select “Become a Mentor” so that they will be searchable by mentees. Mentees will select the path that is most applicable for them (undergraduate, post baccalaureate, graduate, post doctoral, or junior faculty) and then select a mentor or request help from the administrator to find a mentor. Existing MyNRMN members can also go directly to MyMentor. https://my.nrmnet.net/program/p/mymentor. If you have any questions about MyMentor or would like to learn more, please reach out to info@nrmnet.net.
