The origin of the term mentoring takes us back to Greek mythology. Before Odysseus went off to the Trojan War, he entrusted his friend Mentor with the care of his son. Mentor stood by him with advice and supported him in every situation in life (Homer, 2010).
Mentoring is still based on this definition today! Blickle (2000) and Eby (2010) define mentoring as the support of an inexperienced person (mentee) by an experienced person (mentor). The main aim is to accompany the mentee on his/her path – personally and professionally – by imparting knowledge. The mentee is in a transition phase and has new developmental tasks ahead of them, which the mentor has already successfully mastered (DuBois & Karcher, 2014). By passing on specialist knowledge and experience, the mentor can support the mentee in this challenging life situation (Kaminski, Kennecke, Dlugosch, Weisweiler & Frey, 2017).
In the summer semester of 2018, peer mentoring for students in their first and second semester was piloted as part of a Master’s thesis. Building on this, the current PLUSTRACK mentoring program was developed! First-semester students (=mentees) are accompanied by senior students (=mentors, >2 semesters) for one semester. The focus of the content is on
- Developing an academic identity as a PLUS student
- Promoting a sense of belonging and building a network
- Facilitating the start of studies
- Providing information about the curriculum, university offers and organizational matters
- Getting to know Salzburg as a student city
During the course, students learn what mentoring is, how they can act as academic role models and where the limits of this counseling format lie. They are introduced theoretically and practically to the basics of social interaction as well as person-centered attitudes and conversation techniques. In addition, participants reflect on how they see themselves and others and get to know themselves and their social roles in detail. The aim of the training is to expand the students’ professional, methodological, personal and social skills and to optimally prepare them for their role as a mentor (Mackinger et al., 2014).
At the beginning of the mentoring program, the mentors and mentees fill out a profile with information about themselves. They provide information about their age, gender, origin, field of study, semester, hobbies, interests and expectations of the project.
These profiles are compared between mentor and mentee using a specific algorithm. Mentor and mentee are assigned to each other through automated scoring for similarities.
Mentoring is not only available for first-semester students at the University of Salzburg, but also for school pupils. “Springboard” Mentoring offers school pupils the opportunity to take a first look at university. They are supported by qualified student teachers. For more information click here.