The future is mentoring

Over the past decade, the demand for mentoring at Westminster has driven our mentoring programmes to adapt, transform and expand. This year we launched course-embedded Group Mentoring to allow hundreds more students and recent graduates to reap the benefits of a mentoring relationship.

The benefits of having a mentor are countless. For students who are set on working in a specific industry, being matched with a mentor who has specialist knowledge and real insight into that industry is invaluable. Meanwhile, students who are less sure about their steps after graduation can still enhance their employability by learning the many soft skills our mentors have honed over years of practise. If nothing else, all students benefit from a confidence boost, gaining a clearer vision of what they are capable of and knowing that they are supported by their mentors.

And the benefits are felt both ways. By all accounts, mentors discover a new appreciation for their own career journeys. They are encouraged by what they see in Westminster students, and enjoy the challenge of gaining new skills through becoming mentors.

In fact, the numbers speak for themselves: when Westminster first launched its mentoring programme in 2012 there were 12 mentoring relationships. Fast forward to today and we have thousands of mentors willing to volunteer on our programmes, with 1,045 mentoring relationships supported in the last academic year alone.

While accommodating the growth of mentoring at Westminster, the Mentoring Team have also worked to diversify the programme by adapting it to the individual needs of students and volunteers. Under the umbrella of Future Ready Mentoring, we now have three distinct branches of mentoring on offer, tailored to suit the varied needs of our students.

Career Mentoring programme

The original long-term mentoring opportunity at Westminster, the Career Mentoring programme matches a student or recent graduate with a mentor who has professional experience in the student’s area of interest. Over a series of sessions, mentors provide realistic advice, support and opportunities to help students work towards their personal and professional goals.

Due to its popularity, the programme now has two cycles or ‘intakes’ per year. While the pandemic caused some disruption to the programme initially, by moving online, the Career Mentoring Programme has become even more accessible.

The option of virtual mentoring means that students can also be matched with more of our international mentors – who are based in over 40 different countries around the world. Gaining this global perspective is an added bonus to students’ mentoring experience.

Students from Westminster Business School discussed resilience and leadership with their group mentors

Ask a Mentor service

Sometimes, the Career Mentoring Programme isn’t the answer. Students who have part-time jobs, for example, may struggle to commit to a long-term mentoring relationship. And sometimes students will just have one specific query they need an answer to.

That’s where our Ask a Mentor service comes in, to provide a shortterm, one-off conversation between a student or recent graduate and a mentor.

Queries from mentees can be broad, such as interview or job application advice, or very specific to particular industries.

It is thanks to our diverse pool of mentors, each with their own unique experiences and areas of expertise, that all queries – no matter how technical – can be addressed.

Group Mentoring

The latest mentoring venture at Westminster is the pilot of course-embedded Group Mentoring sessions.

Having witnessed the success of our established programmes, the Mentoring Team looked for more innovative ways of maximising the number of students who could benefit from a mentoring experience. By bringing mentoring into the classroom, hundreds more students have had that opportunity.

Unlike the other programmes, Group Mentoring is subject-specific and integrated into teaching. Over the semester, mentors are welcomed onto campus to lead sessions for groups of students as part of timetabled teaching. The sessions are tailored to suit the course module and the mentors are professionals within industries relevant to the course.

Mentor Richard Marsden, for example, is Information Technology Security Manager at IT company Cognizant (one of our dedicated volunteer partner companies). Richard volunteered on our most recent Group Mentoring pilot, which supported final year students in the School of Computer Science and Engineering with the ‘Information Driven Entrepreneurship & Enterprise’ module. As part of the module, students work in small groups to develop a plan for a viable business concept. Our group mentors, who had either an IT or a business background, played a key role in helping students consider and develop their online business proposals.

“I’ve got a lifetime of experience to share with people who are just starting out,” says Richard. “The job I’m in now is IT security and so part of the discussion was about supporting their project in terms of security. But we also talked around the scope of technology. Because it’s a huge area, there’s a mysticism about what IT is, and these sessions help with that.”

Mentors met with their group of students three times over the semester and crafted their own sessions in line with a key objective to support each stage of the project:

1 EXPLORE: Understanding what makes a viable online business. In the early stages of the module, mentors helped the project groups to form a viable online business plan, by brainstorming ideas and challenging the need for the business in the real world.

2 EMPOWER: Overcoming challenges with product or service development. Mid-way through the project, mentors used their expertise to help students smooth out any issues with their project proposal.

3 ELEVATE: Applying your knowledge to succeed in your career. After the projects had been submitted, mentors met with their groups for a final time to discuss how they can apply what they have learnt through project work to their careers.

“The group I’ve been with I think have been really accommodating and taken everything on board,” says Richard. “Because we’ve stayed with the same group, it’s meant that I’ve been able to foster that engagement. Which has been very rewarding.

“They have also asked to keep in contact with me. One of the students has asked if I can review her CV – which of course I’m happy to do. If they want to carry on the contact beyond this, I think that’s testament to how well they’ve taken on board what I’ve been teaching.”

Mentor Maria speaks to students about how to apply what they have learnt through mentoring to their future careers.

Another of our mentors, Maria Lain Valenzuela, (WBS Exchange Programme, 2008) who is Founder and Director of language course business, Spanish for Executives, has also been impressed at how well students have responded to Group Mentoring.

“My impression is that students are super committed. They are really aware of the importance of this opportunity to be connected with professionals.

“The key advice I wanted to give them was to stay hungry and be curious about what every professional you meet on your path can bring. You never know who will inspire you. And of course, to work hard and don’t expect immediate rewards.”

The project group Maria was supporting developed a business plan for a web application. As one of the students in her group, Vinujan, explains: “It’s a web application for small businesses (less than or equal to 50), where their employees would use our system to order food for the week.

“Maria gave suggestions throughout our project, and we discussed what would happen if we implemented them. She helped us to stay on track with our business idea. She also asked about our careers and suggested where the opportunities for us would be. This was really helpful and something that we will continue to put our thought into.”

This is not Maria’s first time volunteering at Westminster. Since 2016, she has been supporting our Career Mentoring programme and has helped many students navigate the transition into the world of work. Beyond seeing students flourish, it is the opportunity for personal reflection and development that encourages Maria to return to the programme.

“I think that being part of a mentoring scheme is always rewarding for the professional,” she says. “It is a great opportunity to be in touch with younger people, who are facing certain problems for the first time. You have these fresh insights into problem-solving approaches that can be really inspiring. You also gain more skills in empathy and become a better communicator.

“By volunteering, the circle is connected. You don’t leave the university and fly away, but you feed back and bring what you’ve learnt. I think every professional should come back and share their career experiences to support students.”

This optimism for mentoring at Westminster is evident in feedback from all of our mentors. Whether they are new to Westminster or a long-term volunteer, the shared experience across all of our mentoring programmes has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I’m not an alumnus – it’s my first time here at Westminster,” says Richard. “But I’m very encouraged by what I’ve seen in these students. By their thought patterns, and also their willingness to ask questions. That is really encouraging. These are the people who are now coming into the job market. It does bode well for the future.”

The three Group Mentoring pilots have now concluded. The other modules supported by these pilots were ‘Employability and Leadership’ as part of BA Business Management, and ‘Mindfulness and Psychotherapist Practice’ for BSc Psychology and Counselling students.

Following the success of all three pilots, the Mentoring Team have very ambitious plans to roll the programme out even further across the University. They will continue to work closely with academics to really tailor the sessions and supplement what students are learning on their modules.

With the dedication of our mentors and the eagerness of our students, we hope to integrate mentoring into every course so that ultimately, every student will benefit from mentoring at Westminster.

THANK YOU TO OUR MENTORS

It is thanks to your commitment that mentoring at Westminster continues to grow, to give all students the best chance of success after graduation. Thank you. As Future Ready Mentoring continues to expand, so does the demand for mentors. To join us on our journey and become a mentor at Westminster, visit: westminster.ac.uk/become-a-mentor

We are always keen to partner with organisations. Get in touch with us to find out more: career-mentoring@westminster.ac.uk