Finding a Mentorship Opportunity

Here is a list of some of the formal mentorship programs available at McMaster University:

• Anthropology Skills and Knowledge Mentorship Program – A mentorship program where graduate students volunteer their time to answer questions that undergraduate students may have about anthropology.
• Department of Sociology Mentoring Program – Matches incoming graduate students to returning students each year in order to provide new students with a mentor to which they can ask questions, become acquainted with the department and the city, and get support when they need it throughout the academic year.
• Indigenous Mentorship Program  – Helps dismantle barriers to post-secondary education for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis students coming into or already within the Faculty of Health Sciences. Each year, Indigenous students are recruited from all areas of the Faculty of Health Sciences and related health programs to be Mentors.

Mentorship opportunities are not limited to formal mentoring programs. Informal mentoring is a natural component of relationships in the workplace, as well as in social and professional activities. As Shawn, Lisa, and Megan describe, this type of mentorship can happen in the classroom, in the laboratory, or through your extra-curricular activities.

Although the most common mentoring structure involves a one-on-one, face-to-face relationship between mentor and student, mentoring relationships may also be structured to include multiple students, otherwise known as group mentoring. It is also increasingly common for mentoring relationships to take place electronically  via technology, commonly referred to as e-mentoring.