Frequently Asked Questions

Mentors:

• How can I become a mentor?
  Mentors need to have a willingness to help others and to share their experience. Mentors have completed at least one semester of university study to a satisfactory academic standard. Finally, all mentors need to qualify for a Working with Children Check. If you tick all those boxes and attend mentor training, you're in!
• How much time am I expected to commit?
  Mentors are expected to provide their mentee with about one hour of support per fortnight across the semester. In addition to this, there will also be interaction that takes place via email or our online tool, which will typically take another hour per fortnight.
• What training and support is provided? 
  Mentors are all required to attend a face-to-face training session with the Academic Development Advice team, which will help you understand the role and important things like confidentiality. You don't need to know everything, the ADA team will be available throughout your involvement to assist with any area of difficulty.

Mentees:

• How can I become a mentee?
  You register! As a new student at Swinburne, we want to encourage you to reach out for support - it's not always easy to ask for help, so we want to make it as simple as possible.
• Can you adjust the program to suit individual needs?
  For example, if I'm not comfortable in groups, can I meet my mentor one-to-one?
  Absolutely - our program is only valuable if it's valuable to you. Just let us know if you have any particular needs and we'll do our best to make something that works for you. At the same time, we hope mentoring helps you to build confidence to try new things.
• I'm not on campus much, can I do mentoring online?
  Mentoring is about providing guidance and support, so while we encourage mentors and mentees to meet face-to-face if possible, we're totally fine with this guidance and support being provided online, if that's your preferred option.