Thrive mentoring has been running for 10 years this month, we wanted to take some time to reflect on the scheme and how mentoring can help you.
Thrive supports our second year and final year undergraduates (along with some postgraduates) in speaking to one of our mentors, to get a better understanding of their career interests and how to work towards these.
Thrive started off as a small programme in our careers centre, but we now support around 200 mentoring partnerships every academic year, with mentors from a wide range of industries. Over this time Thrive has supported students in exploring their career interests (no matter how certain these are), gaining real insights into industries, and enables students to meet their goals with a mentor. Whether that be building confidence, applying for opportunities, or learning how to navigate the working world.
As a collective, we (the Thrive team) really enjoy seeing students building strong relationships with their mentor and hearing how their mentor has been a real support to them to work towards their career goals. Some students are still in contact with Thrive mentor many years after their time on the programme has finished. Our tips to students would be:
- Think about the transferable skills a mentor has. For example, if someone is keen to speak to a primary teacher, there may be professionals working in another role now, but that have substantial experience of working within primary education. It’s all about reading mentors’ profiles fully to understand their experience and how they can help you.
- You don’t need to know what you want to do, to have a mentor. Thrive is an opportunity for you to explore interests you have, before you apply for work experience, your mentor doesn’t have to be from your area of study. The choice is up to you.
Our mentors are all volunteers, who genuinely want to support our students in what is a very difficult climate. They have a lot of knowledge and experience to give, if you are interested to explore your career interests.
If you do not have any contacts to speak to within an industry you’re interested in, reach out us on mentoring@reading.ac.uk or sign up here, to start your mentoring journey.
Holly Forsyth, Career Mentoring Manager