Self-Designed Experience Mentorship Guide

All honors experiences have a mentor (professors of seminars, coordinators/supervisors of pre-approved). A mentor is a resource to help you meet your goals, overcome challenges, and support you in your experience. Your mentor is your co-pilot to help you stay on track throughout your experience and offer support as needed.

If you (or your mentor) have not yet reviewed the UHP Mentorship Guide, we highly encourage you to do so.

• You should feel comfortable talking to and approaching your mentor.
• Mentors should be someone you want to connect with regularly throughout your experience.
• Mentors should have knowledge of your experience topic-either specifically or related topic.
  • Related topic could be you are learning German, but you have a mentor who knows Spanish and you trust them to be a guide in the language learning process, even if it’s not the language you are learning 
• Mentors should directly support and guide you in your goals.
• Mentors may have similar goals or outcomes of your project.

• Professors, co-ops, family friend, research, advisor (academic, co-op, athletic, etc.), coach, supervisor of experience/project/research/role
• UC research directory; search by name or topic area
• Seek assistance from your UHP advisor
• Peers only if they possess extensive experience and/or expertise in an area related to your experience 
  • See the peer mentor guide
• You may know your mentor well prior to the experience, or you could be developing a new relationship

• Are you interested in committing [amount of time] being my mentor for [experience]. 
• Do you have any suggestions of resources related to my topic?

• Shared goals and /or outcomes
• Agree on meeting days, times, and locations

As the designer of your experience, you set how often it is beneficial to meet with your mentor. For semester-long experiences, this could be biweekly or monthly, for shorter experiences it may be weekly or every other day. Think about how you best communicate (in-person meetings; emailing; WhatsApp, etc.) and establish good practices for meeting and working with your mentor. 

This template can be used with possible mentors you know very well or ones you are establishing a new relationship with. You can also meet with a potential mentor and verbally ask for mentorship using this as a guide.

Dear Mentor,

As a member of UHP, I’m completing a self-designed experience titled [insert title]. I’m reaching out because you have expertise in this area and I’m seeking mentorship from you. I’m planning this experience for [timeline] and I’d like to meet with you [virtually/in-person] [frequency]. Are you interested in being an active mentor and supporting me in this experience and learning?

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