Mentoring Philosophy As a mentor, I view my mentee as collaborators rather than just student. Thus, I respect their opinion and an important mentoring goal for me is to provide my mentee with the opportunity and ability to achieve their professional/personal goal.
To help my mentee to identify their goals, I will have them experience each stage of research so they can decide if they are interested in it. I try my best to help my mentee to achieve their professional goals. One of my previous UROP student is interested in data analysis, and so I spend most of our meetings showing them the data analysis script and having them learn data analysis by practicing.
As a mentor, I view my mentee as equal. During our interaction, I do not try to be dominating and use my knowledge to guide my students rather than forcing them to complete tasks I assigned them. I am currently collaborating with another student, helping her to develop her own project. During our collaboration, I encourage my mentee to come up with research ideas rather than telling her what project she should work on. While I let my student to take the lead, I still give them guidance and support them. For example, I would give my students literature that I think is relevant for her to read and use my knowledge to help her when she is stuck.