PLSE Mentorship

This document is a recommendation and resource for how to mentor undergraduate and master’s students in PLSE as a PhD student.

Allen School Official Process

The Allen School has an official process for undergraduate research, including an agreement form: Undergraduate Research Opportunities Undergraduates should receive either course credit or RA pay for their work.

PLSE Mentorship Guidelines

Do

• Do have a weekly one-on-one meeting between mentor and mentee. Mentors are there to guide and support mentees, and meeting each week ensures consistent support. If there’s no weekly meeting, mentees can get stuck or feel lost.
• Do have at least one meeting with the mentor’s advisor and the mentee per quarter, focused on how things are going and broader future goals. Mentors are not just there to help mentees with research on a daily basis, but also to help mentees with long-term goals (such as career advice, grad school applications, etc.). Meeting with the mentor’s advisor can help mentees get a broader perspective and more support.
• Do have the mentor also working on mentee’s project, at least part-time. Mentorship is usually more effective when mentors are actively involved in the research project, bringing their expertise to low-level details as well as high-level vision. This also helps mentors understand the project better and give better advice to mentees.
• Do clearly communicate time commitments, and check in regularly. It’s okay to take busy quarters off, but clear communication is key. When time commitments change or are unclear, it becomes difficult to plan research projects and be an effective mentor.
• Do encourage mentees to contact mentors frequently or request extra meetings. Some mentees are shy about asking for help, or get stuck for a long time without asking for help.

Don’t

• Don’t have more than 2 mentees per mentor! Ideally 1. PhD students in the past have not been able to give mentees the attention they deserve when mentoring more than 2 mentees.
• Don’t have mentees work on multiple projects. Taking classes and doing research is already challenging, and having multiple projects can spread mentees too thin.