The Importance of the Media Department’s Mentor Program

By Aamin Withrow-Davis, second-year graduate student in the Digital Media program

The Media department offers guidance through its use of faculty personnel to mentor its students. Through mentoring, the faculty personnel instill core professional skills to the mentee.
The Media department’s commitment to students’ professional, intellectual and personal growth leads it to make mentoring a requirement. The requirement of each student to have a mentor enables a greater transfer of skills — professional, interpersonal and leadership.
Mentoring can be easily seen as a chore, stopping the mentee from gaining the benefits of having a distinguished and knowledgeable professional as a developmental guide. However, as a student, there are a few tactics you can implement to boost the benefits of mentoring.
The first step is to stop viewing your mentor as a career development strategist and view him or her as a chance to foster a professional friendship. As a mentee, you have to be comfortable sharing information about yourself, actively listening and contributing to the conversation, not shying away from tough conversations and being able to take constructive criticisms. Doing so establishes a genuine, trustworthy relationship, which proves more beneficial to you and your mentor.
You also have to have a clear understanding of what exactly you want to take away from your mentor. Remember that your faculty mentor is already an established professional in the career field you are pursuing. They can help develop your maximum potential as a professional, enable you to bolster self-confidence while also helping you take control of your career.
Lastly, you have to realize that this is a mutual exchange of knowledge and experience. This opportunity serves as a learning experience for both you and the faculty member, providing the mentor with a sense of self-worth and re-energizing his or her career.
By remembering the previously mentioned tactics, you will be able to develop a genuine, trustworthy and mutual relationship to further develop each other’s networking, professional, technical and change management skills.