By: Alli Donovan, Marketing, BS’18
The Team Kelley Mentoring Program premiered for the first time in August 2017. The program was created to connect incoming pre-business freshmen and Kelley direct-admit freshmen to an upperclassman in Kelley. Through this program, the new business students can get information and advice from perspective of Kelley students who were in their shoes not too long ago.
Mentors and mentees are paired up based on their major and interests.
Personally, I chose to become a mentor, because I feel that I would have really benefitted from having a mentor when I was a freshman. I want to become friends with my mentees and help them in any way I can to become the best student they can be here at Kelley.
As mentors, we had a training session led by our coordinator, Kelley staff member Justin Eitniear.
“I wanted to start this mentoring program because I believe students can really benefit from having a peer mentor, especially a mentor in the same concentration,” said Eitniear. “Our student mentees have the chance to become engaged with the campus and be introduced faster to all the resources Kelley has to offer; while our mentors have the opportunity to hone their leadership and teamwork skills outside of the classroom. All things I think are important to creating more successful Kelley students.”
We learned rules and tips about how to guide our mentees through their first semester at college. We are supposed to be their helping hand, their word of advice, and, most importantly, their friend.
As Kelley Mentors, we have a standard of helping our freshmen mentees socially, professionally, and academically. We want to see them succeed and become student leaders in Kelley.
The program consists of 14 mentors and 41 mentees.
The Team Kelley Mentoring Program is just in its beginning stages, but I think it is a valuable program and should continue to grow and develop. Justin has big plans for the program in the future, so I encourage all Kelley students to stop and reflect, and see if being a mentor would be something that would interest you. The program has given me the opportunity to be a leader and friend to three awesome freshmen that I wouldn’t have met otherwise.
