The UWA Mentor Collective program enhances your online learning experience by linking you one-on-one with an alumni mentor. You’ll be paired with someone invested in your success — a person ready to listen, inspire, help navigate challenges and recognize opportunities. Students learn what to expect in school, how to approach challenges, gain career advice and valuable insights, while mentors build their networks and develop skills to become better professionals and leaders.
How it Works
Students will be matched with an alumni mentor based on common interests, background, academics and professional aspirations. To get started, students and mentors register and complete an online survey to assess personality and experience.
What do mentors and mentees discuss?
- How will my major impact my professional options?
- How do I balance the demands of school, responsibilities, and socializing?
- How can I set myself up for academic, social, and career success?
- How do I make connections with peers and professional contacts?
“My mentor has given me confidence and reassurance in my work” – Willetter Scales, Mentee (2020)
How can students get matched with a mentor to support their peers?
We are actively enrolling students and mentors for the upcoming school year. If you’re interested in learning more about Mentor Collective at UWA online, sign up below!
Get started. Find yourself a mentor who will coach and advise you through the big stuff – and the small stuff. Take the survey!
Find a mentor
Our alumni are ideal mentors, helping students look forward, as they look back. Get involved!
Become a alumni mentor
Questions? Want to learn more? Contact us at help@mentorcollective.org
Video #1 – Transcript
NARRATOR: Imagine walking down a long and narrow country road. Looking forward, you see a towering mountain in the distance. As you approach the base of the mountain, you notice more and more trails leading to the top. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of trails, lie in front of you. But which path do you take? This mountain could represent your first year at school, or your first month at a new job.
You probably have a ton of goals in taking on this challenge, but no one conquers their mountain without a little support. And that’s where your mentor comes in. Think of your mentor as your personal tour guide, here to guide you through the hills and valleys of your ascent. Your mentor will teach you how to navigate the treacherous terrain and give you valuable guidance at every juncture.
Want to improve your soft skills? Your mentor can help. Got a question or a concern? Ask away. This mentorship portal is where you’ll access self-help resources and work with your mentor to climb that mountain and achieve your goals.
Before we can get started, you just need to take a mentor matching survey, which will allow our mentorship team to find you the perfect mentor. After that, you’ll be ready to start your journey. Get excited, your rockstar mentor is right around the corner.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Meet Jasmine Branch | Member of UWA’s Mentorship Program – Transcript
JASMINE BRANCH: Hi, my name is Jasmine Branch and I am a part of the University of West Alabama’s Mentorship Program, where I am mentored by Miss Talicia McCall. One of the prompts for the scholarship app opportunity asks, what is the importance of having a mentorship? And there’s no better day than today for me to answer that question.
It’s on days like today– where my schedule is hectic and there are so many things that I have to get done– that I often revert to the information that Talicia gave me early on in our mentorship relationship. And that is the Eisenhower matrix of how to prioritize those things that are urgent, and those things that are just important when it comes to decision-making.
Little things like this– practical tips have been instrumental for me, being a nontraditional student, a full-time professional, and a full-time mother. Having those tidbits of information that are things that I can pull on, resources that I can use daily in determining how to handle the things that are before me, has been so important.
And that is information that I rely directly on Talicia for, even on today, when I had a number of things on my plate, I found time to make contact with Talicia. And she reached out to me just to be able to keep me encouraged, and to tell me that it’s OK, and to take those moments to just focus on the things that I have to do– again using that matrix, and those things that can afford to wait until another day.
So just having someone in my corner, having her support has been everything for me. As nontraditional students, a lot of times in higher education, we are not necessarily connected with resources, or prioritizing higher education. But it’s so important, because we are the demographic of people that usually struggle the most to complete higher education because there are so many other things that we have to do.
So it’s just very important. I wanted to reach out to say thank you for this opportunity, to thank you so much for matching me with such a perfect mentor– someone else who knows what it is to pursue higher education, to make the role of a full-time mother, and to also work as a full-time professional financing your education.
She has been wise counsel for me. She has been a voice of reason when I don’t always have the answer. And more than anything, she’s been inspiration. So in those moments where I feel like I’m in the trenches of having to balance it all, and having to be superwoman, I look to her for an example that it can be done.
And in fact, one thing that she says is that it must be done, it’s required. And so thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you so much for considering me. And again, thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this program.
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