Mentoring – a personal story

A mentee from the Peers Project, now a mentor on the Bristol Clear Mentoring Scheme. Aaron Lim offers his inside perspective on what it was like to be mentored and what he gained from the experience.

“I joined the Peers’ Project pilot mentoring programme (which has now become the Bristol Clear Mentoring Scheme) and signed up as both a mentor and a mentee. The mentor I was matched with was initially concerned about how helpful she would be considering that she was not that far ahead of me in terms of career stage. However, sometimes just being able to talk with a mentor one step ahead is useful. We got along very well and she proved to be an amazing mentor who would listen attentively and offer her advice or perspectives based on her personal experiences about a range of work-life topics. We continued to stay in contact, even after the mentoring pilot programme officially ended and even after she left Bristol for a new position. Overall, I thought the mentoring match was highly successful and we learned a lot from each other during the process, so I would highly recommend any potential mentors who are hesitant to sign up, because they can certainly make a huge difference to a mentee, no matter what stage he/she is career-wise. My positive experience as a mentee has helped me in my own role as a mentor.”

Get involved

If you are Research Staff, and in Science, Engineering, Arts or Social Sciences and Law (Life and Health… coming soon), you can sign up for the March-Sept mentoring cycle now.

If you’d like to become mentor either for this cycle, or for the future, then please also sign up.

Other events coming up:

Peer to Peer Mentoring – Tuesday 29 January, 14:30 – 16:30

Academic Journeys Event – Friday 22 February, 14:00 – 16:00