Reflections on a Mentorship — Part 01
In modern days, teaching is not merely limited to learning something new, but rather identifying what you already know and searching for methods in which you can apply what you know and create something new. This process is much harder than words can just express. We often encounter difficulties in identifying what our strengths are, and have misconceptions on how to connect what we know to a novel idea. That is where ‘Mentoring’ comes into play!
This series of blogs would be related to the learnings that I will be getting from ScholarX, a six-month mentorship programme that I got selected for. Being grateful for the opportunity given, I would be looking forward to explore all the areas that I have yet to discover and get the best out of this.
Looking deeper into the programme
ScholarX, which is one of the proud initiatives of the Sustainable Education Foundation (SEF), is a six-month free premium mentorship program exclusively for Sri Lankan youth who are engaged in their academics. What ScholarX does is that it connects Sri Lankan academics and industry experts worldwide with Sri Lankan students who seek guidance in various aspects, to get their future shaped as preferred. The third iteration of the ScholarX programme started off this year with over 75 mentors and over 250 mentees from various universities around Sri Lanka and abroad. Looking into Sustainable Education Foundation, it works as a volunteer-driven organization that “strives to take Sri Lanka from Brain Drain to Brain Gain by creating non-traditional learning opportunities for local students”. You can refer to the SEF website to gain a better idea about their project portfolio.
From the application process to the induction process
Being an undergraduate who had always been interested in pursuing a career in the Electronics field, my sole purpose was to find a mentor who could help me with my intentions. With the plans that I had back then, I was expecting to get insights from this mentorship on how to learn more on the subject matter and how to equip myself with the expertise. During the time that I got the email announcing the mentor match that I have got, I was equally excited and skeptical, since I got the mentor that I requested, but at the same time I had decided to follow my degree from a different sector.
Nevertheless, considering the opportunities that I would be open for, I decided to go with the mentor that I have got, since I was pretty convinced by that time about how this had become the perfect eye-opener for most of the mentees of the previous batches. All in all, why should I let go of such an amazing chance that is full of learning ?
“I think the greatest thing we give each other is encouragement. Knowing that I’m talking to someone in this mentoring relationship who’s interested in the big idea here is very, very important to me. I think if it were just about helping me get to the next step, it would be a heck of a lot less interesting.” — Anne Sweeney
The email titled “We Have A Match” acknowledged me that my mentor was Mr. Hiroshan Gunawardane, a Graduate research assistant and a Teaching assistant at the University of British Columbia (UBC), who is currently working towards his PhD in the area of Soft Robotics focusing on surgical applications.
Prior to the First Meeting
Before the first meeting, we had our first official connect through email, where my mentor had requested to send our CVs, half a page of the letter of motivation and the letter of intention, covering my future plans, goals, ambitions, etc. Also, he had inquired about our areas of interest and also our priorities from which he can provide his mentoring, i.e. from Robotics, Automation and Mechatronics.
I was extra cautious when working on my letter of motivation and intention, since that was how I was to communicate about my expectations from this whole mentorship programme, and to do the expectation setting with my mentor as well. So within them, while mentioning about my current education status and my path of studies, I mentioned my insistence on learning ways that I can study externally about the Job opportunities available within Sri Lanka with respect to the Robotics sector, and how I can have deep-insights and get expertise on that matter, by developing a solid foundation.
After analyzing and going through all the documents, the first meeting was finally set, by asking to come along with a presentation about myself, highlighting my experience and background, along with a research area that I was interested in.
Now that was a bit challenging for me, because at that time, I had just got myself into the third-year, and that also for a degree which was industry-oriented, and thereby didn’t have any research to carry on. So, after a certain amount of quality fact-finding, I decided to go with Sensor technology, Power electronics, Robotics and AI, as my areas of interest for my research on Electronics.
First Meeting
The first meeting was held as a group meeting with all the other selected mentees under my mentor, which was focused on introducing ourselves to each other. Throughout the meeting, he made sure to question all of us in order to get a deeper understanding about each other. Once we were done with the introductory session, he discussed with the group about the deliverables that he would be expecting from us, from which we had to give priority on working on a review paper or an actual research work, as preferred.
Although it was quite an amount of work to be handled in 6 months of this mentorship programme, the whole group was convinced about the direction and the plan that our mentor had got for us, for which we agreed willingly as well. After a casual and insightful conversation, we were divided into groups, where I got myself into a group with two colleagues having the expertise in Mechatronics and Robotics. Before our next meeting, we were asked to look into the ideas from which we should conduct our research, and come up with some topics where we can find a certain research gap to work on a novel idea.
Considering the fact of us three being from three different fields depicted the challenges that we would have to face, but nevertheless also the multi-varied areas that we would have to dive into, from which we would be able to be more equipped with knowledge. Now, this makes the whole mentorship experience look more exciting, and definitely would be looking forward to witness what I have got to learn. After all, mentorship is about having challenging conversations that help increase your self-awareness and help you grow both personally and professionally.
See you all with the next blog on the discussion and the finalization of the research topic ! Happy learning !
