Featured Student: Mentoring: Being Mentored and Mentoring Others

By Janet Zimmerman

“Mentoring is a developmental relationship between a more experienced individual, a mentor, and a less experienced partner, a mentee. Through regular interactions, the mentee relies on the mentor’s guidance to gain skills, perspective, and experience.”            

~Mettium Corporation

Mentoring is one of the great ways that less experienced individuals (like students) can learn from more experienced individuals (like RDs, professors, role models in your career field, etc).  

Mentors Job:

1)   Build a relationship with a younger or less experienced person interested in the mentor’s career field.  This relationship should eventually become comfortable, and the mentee can learn from the mentor by not only listening to the mentor but also observing he or she.

2)   Teach the mentee skills and knowledge that are required for success in his or her career. (This includes “unwritten rules” like having a social media background will help you with a career in dietetics—more on this in the near future!)

3)   Set up a series of career or life goals for the mentee.  The mentor will then guide and encourage the mentee in these goals. In many cases, the mentor will then introduce the mentee to other people in the career field who can help the mentee reach these goals.

So, you may be thinking… “how does this apply to me?” 

For one, I would love to push all of you to find a mentor (someone more experienced then you in dietetics or a related field) if you do not have one yet.  As you can see from the mentor’s job list, a mentor is extremely useful in developing us as students.  I have found that there are many Registered Dietitians who love working with students. 

All Access Internship has a wonderful list of RDs who want to work with students here: http://allaccessinternships.com/experiences.php.

Secondly, I would love for all of you to start mentoring younger students.  Many student dietetic associations have student mentoring programs that are great to jump into.  Mentoring less experienced students helps us put what we have learned into practice and keeps us growing and learning.

Do you have a mentor or do you mentor someone? We’d love to hear your experiences in the comments!