18. What has motivated you to volunteer to support a Birkbeck student as a mentor? Consider your personal motivations and what you’d like to gain by mentoring a Birkbeck student. (max. 150 words)
I would like to volunteer for Mentoring Pathways because I believe that mentorship can be a valuable tool to help talented and hard-working people achieve their goals. I am particularly interested in mentoring a Birkbeck student as I know that the university is passionate about improving access to education, and I’d like to help students who might not have the network or ‘insider knowledge’ to start their careers. When I started my career, I know I would have benefitted from similar advice and would like to offer my guidance to help others in a similar position.
By mentoring a Birkbeck student, I’d like to develop my mentoring skills such as active listening and helping others to set SMART goals. I also think that mentorship would be an interesting opportunity to meet someone with a different perspective on the world and to learn from their personal experiences too.
19. What expertise do you hope to offer to a Birkbeck student? Please share any skills, tools, knowledge or previous mentoring experience that you’d like to bring to your mentoring relationship. (Max. 150 words)
I have three years of experience managing a small team of graduates and have found it rewarding to see how much they can achieve with my guidance and knowledge of the industry. In this role I helped people starting their careers to develop new skills that reflected their interests and goals which could help them take the next step in their professional journey.
In my current role, I have experience with the following skills and would be happy to share these with a mentee; engaging with stakeholders, preparing reports and presentations, programme management, and database management. I also have a PRINCE2 Qualification and would be happy to share my experience on this course.
