Mentoring programme delivers skills and career advice at crucial time
Dr Bhakti More, Associate Professor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai Campus, School of Design & Architecture
Dr Bhakti More, Associate Professor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai Campus, School of Design & Architecture
"Chris has been an amazing mentor for Tara,” says Dr More. “I’ve seen how he is really guiding Tara to enhance her knowledge.
“It is clear mentoring is giving our graduates the confidence to approach their careers in a different way to what they would have done without the mentor’s influence,” she says. “A mentor can really make graduates think differently about what reading they should do, whom they should meet and what networking they can do to achieve their goals and plan their career.”
With feedback from participants in the pilot year pointing to success, Her Tomorrow Begins Today is set to expand for the next cohort of graduates, as well as being opened to students in the final years of study. The result will be more young women building bridges with their chosen industry at a crucially formative stage of their career.
Right now I'm working on building expertise in my field. I’ve also started working towards achieving Chartership through Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). After a few years I’ll have a better idea of what area I want to move into next.
The programme has been a great platform for getting industry experience, networking and boosting my career development, but Chris’s insight into how I can be better throughout my career has been the most valuable outcome of the mentorship.
Tara comes from a different generation and it's useful for me to learn how she sees the world. The perspective from a different gender is also invaluable. It’s useful to see how she understands things and, when I'm conveying ideas, I get to see whether she finds them interesting.
Mentoring is not something you can rush. It can seem time intensive, but I believe that time is available and I, along with many of my peers, am happy to give it.