Why You Should Join the Mentorship Program

Moving from home country to Canada can be a challenging experience. Through the International Student Mentorship Program, new-to-Calgary international students can apply as mentees and connect with an upper-year student volunteer who can help answer their questions and provide peer-advice about adapting to life in the city and at UCalgary.

At the same time, mentors benefit from the Mentorship Program by developing their leadership skills and enhancing their intercultural communication skills. Continue reading to learn more about what our Fall 2022 student Mentors have to say about their experience in the Program!

What you learned in the Mentorship Program

Interacting with people from diverse backgrounds opens the door for unique learning opportunities. The greatest takeaways for our Mentors is that they had:

• develop and utilize leadership skills
• attain interpersonal and intercultural communication skills
• improve time management skills.

Mentors also learned to be more resourceful, with some saying they were unaware of some of the resources available to UCalgary students before they were involved with the International Student Mentorship program!

One Mentor found the Program helpful in getting them to step out of their comfort zone: "I would not consider myself a very outgoing person, however, through this program I became more outgoing by [taking the first steps to reach out] to my mentee.”

Overall, Mentors discovered their passion for helping other students!

Highlights from the Program

Mentors experienced many highlights from the Program that revolved around their personal interactions with their mentees. Highlights include meeting their mentees for the first time, being able to help another student as they adjust to living in a foreign country and meeting new people through this Program.

Another main highlight for many of our Mentors is hearing how meaningful their work is from their mentees and knowing that they made a positive impact on a student’s University experience. As one Mentor put it: “The main highlight of this program has been able to benefit and guide [a] first-year student through their university [experience] by sharing my own experience!”

Advice for future mentors and mentees

The advice they have for future mentors and mentees are:

• establish clear communication and regularly keep in touch throughout the terms
• understand the importance of kindness, patience, and empathy
• future mentees are encouraged to reach out to their mentors when they need support

As one Mentor said: “this is a very good mentorship program; I would like to see more and more people connecting to each other through this.” And most importantly, "don’t be afraid to try new things," “take advantage of all that the University of Calgary has to offer,” and “have fun!”

Ready to enrich your UCalgary journey? Sign up for the International Student Mentorship Program!