LUT Mentoring Programme

left

Alumni, do you want to help students in matters related to working life and career? Could now be a good time to get involved in mentoring?

Master's or doctoral student, are you interested in developing your career readiness and work-life skills during your studies? Would you like to network with LUT alumni?

This cooperation is possible in the LUT Mentoring Programme.

What is mentoring?

In the LUT Mentoring Programme alumni, who have graduated from the university, mentor the students i.e. mentees. For alumni, mentoring offers fresh viewpoints from the students’ world and an opportunity to reflect one’s own professional know-how.

Alumni and students work in pairs making a process that emphasizes the students’ career readiness and helps defining their professional skill sets and strengths. Mentoring is mutual interaction that requires activity, commitment, openness and trust from each party.

Programme for the academic year 2024–2025

The Mentoring Programme will start again in December.

The mentor application period is open from 12 August to 15 September.
The mentee application period starts on 1 October.

Check the application instructions and criteria in the "Apply as a mentor" and "Apply as a mentee" sections, and apply to join the programme.

right

You can apply as a mentor if you are LUT alumni and you have work experience of five years at the very least.

What we expect from a mentor:

Commitment to meet with the mentee online approximately once a month.
Setting goals and agreeing on the practicalities together with the mentee.
Supporting the student’s career readiness and finding his/her full potential in the labor market.
Understanding that the mentee’s individual needs and desires form the basis of the mentoring process.

What we do not expect from a mentor:

Offering a job, internship or a thesis position to the mentee.
Sharing all the contacts in one’s network.
Being able to answer all the questions the mentee has.

The application period is open until 15 September.

Apply to become a mentor

Who can apply?

LUT master’s students
LUT doctoral students
newly graduated LUT alumni (max one year after graduation) if they are still looking for work from their own field

What we expect from an actor

commitment to meet with the mentor approximately once a month from November to May
commitment to participate three group meetings during the program
taking an active role when agreeing on the meetings, topics and practicalities with the mentor
setting objectives for the program
understanding that the mentor is not expected to offer a job, an internship or a thesis position to you

On the application form you define three mentors you would like to work with (options 1-3). You can apply to any mentor regardless of what you have studied.

Mentors and mentees will be matched up based on their compatibility after the application period. In the formation of pairs, the actors' application order is also taken into account if necessary. All applicants (whether chosen to the program or not) will be contacted personally.

The mentee application period for the academic year 2024–2025 starts in October 2024.

Schedules for the academic year 2024-2025:

Tuesday 10.12.2024

Mandatory online orientation session for mentees at 16.30–17.30
Voluntary online orientation session for mentors at 18.00–19.00

Tuesday 14.1.2025 at 17.00-18.30

an online kick-off event for all the mentors and mentees

January – May 2025

the mentoring pairs meet one another online (or face to face, if they choose to do so) approximately once a month

Tuesday 11.3.2025 at 17.00-18.30

an online mid-way meeting for all the mentors and mentees

Tuesday 27.5.2025 at 17.00-18.30

an online closing ceremony for all the mentors and mentees

Thursday 5.6.2025

a closing dinner in Helsinki
the event will take place in the evening – time and place will be announced later

The programme will be carried out mainly online, but the pairs can meet each other also face to face, if they happen to be in the same area.

The programme consists of three group meetings that all the mentors and actors participate. In addition, there will be at least five meetings together with one’s own pair. The joint meetings will be carried out in English.

It’s smart to agree on the dates and times for the pair meetings early on.

Mentoring is based on voluntariness, so no fees are paid. To participate the programme, one needs to commit to the whole mentoring process, including group and pair meetings.

In the beginning of the process the mentor and the mentee get to know each other, create the ground rules, and make a plan for the whole process. Pairs agree on at least the following:

Objectives for the mentoring process
The themes and questions they are going to work on. Also, what will not be covered.
Confidentiality: What can and cannot be discussed with others.
The dates and times for their meetings and practices for rescheduling or cancelling meetings. The recommended number of pair meetings is 5 times. The recommended duration for one meeting is roughly 1 hour 30 minutes.
Communication during mentoring, including channels and means
The roles and responsibilities of each party, how to prepare for meetings

Please remember that commitment and reliability are very important work life skills in Finland, so therefore, no-show is never an option.

It’s smart to prepare the topics for each pair meeting beforehand in order to benefit from the meetings as much as possible. The topics can be, for example: