They say immigration is like second birth. You don’t talk the talk and you don’t walk the walk. You’re nobody and you know nobody. Yet new foreign students arriving at TU Delft must emerge just two year later as highly skilled engineers.
A difficult challenge, but as of this year first aid is being administered to new arrivals in the form of a student mentor program.
The mentor project was launched two years ago on initiative of the VSSD student union. The union realized that new foreign students who didn’t know their way around might be facing considerable social isolation and need some extra guidance in their first months in Delft and Holland. Fortunately, about the same time, TU Delft’s International Office (InOf) also came to the same conclusion, so when the VSSD approached the head of the InOf, John Stals, with the idea, he responded enthusiastically.
Last year, a pilot mentor project was launched to test the concept. Six mentor groups were formed and incoming foreign students were asked if they wanted to participate: the responses were overwhelming affirmative.
Krista Zoethout is responsible for managing the project for InOf: “When we got five times more requests for participating in the pilot than we could provide mentors for, we knew we had a very relevant project and that it needed to be expanded. It was a bit difficult to coordinate it with the mentor activities that some faculties also provided simultaneously, but the pilot project taught us a lot and our project is a great success.”
The mentors were recruited via advertisements on the TU’s Blackboard and carefully selected according to tough criteria, such as international experience, good communication skills and knowledge of the TU’s internal structure. The chosen mentors then received additional training in intercultural communication.
Bart van Bueren, a recent architecture graduate, was one of the mentors of the pilot project: “Having spent six months in the US, I was especially interested in the internationalization of education. I enjoyed mentoring, and the contact with people from different backgrounds and cultures was very valuable for an architect.”
The mentor groups held weekly status meetings and arranged various social activities, like visiting other Dutch cities and dining together. Thomas Poiesz was the VSSD board member responsible for the evaluating the pilot project: “The results were clear: the mentors were very happy with their roles and the students were positive about the experience. One weak point however was the initial welcoming meeting, which was chaotic at best. Also, we noticed that the need for mentoring was greatest in the first two months, before declining rapidly after the first exams. Students have also dropped out of mentor groups, which is unfortunate considering the costs involved in setting up the pilot.”
Upscaling
While the evaluation showed that students preferred a mixed group, when the project was extended to the whole student body the choice was made for faculty-based groups.
“Some faculties run similar programs and faculties organize their own activities,” Zoethout explains. “The people there also have knowledge of specific areas that we cannot relate to from central administration. The mentors now provide a faculty-related role in addition to social guidance.”
Mentors are also positive about the change in set-up. “Students have more affiliation with students from their own faculties,” Van Bueren says. “I think the change to faculty-based groups will work positively.” The transition was, however, not entirely smooth. While some essentials changed in the upscaling of the project to the whole influx of foreign students, some flaws remained.
The introductory meeting this year, when 650 new arrivals were meeting their mentors for the first time while trying to scavenge some free food from the barbeque, was even more chaotic than last year, although this was partially due to tenfold increase in attendance. Mentors also complained about lack of clarity: not having received any instructions as to what their jobs are actually supposed to be (or not to be).
The faculties are now responsible for the recruitment and organization of mentorships, but they seem to lack clear guidelines as to what the mentors are actually supposed to do. The situation is further complicated by the great divergence in the amount of students per faculty: some faculties have only one mentor group, others up to 15, and some 100 students.
Apparently the division of roles between the faculties and InOf, and the right mix of the social/faculty-related roles of the mentors, still needs to be worked out in more detail. Nevertheless, TU students being what they are, most of the mentors were quite capable of successfully inventing their own roles, since the initial feedback from the students has been very positive.
The role of the mentor is seemingly quite self-explanatory, as most mentor groups ultimately engaged in similar activities, like city trips and visiting student societies, while a session of human chess played at the Delftsche Zwervers was mentioned by one mentored student as an example of an activity that made a unique impression.
Mentors however did report some lack of interest for the meetings on the student side, which is something that can be partially blamed on the workload for MSc students at TU Delft. Another problem seems to be that students of similar origins tend to cling to each other: once they had found students from their home countries, they preferred to socialize with them rather than attend mentoring activities. But even though mentors are sometimes frustrated by “annoying people disturbing group processes”, as one of mentor said, they are more than happy to give crash courses in Dutch culture and Delft student life.
The TU’s mentor project is a living one, being constantly re-evaluated. Mentors receive further coaching from the TU’s FOCUS Centre of Expertise in Education, which is responsible for implementing projects in the field of educational innovation. Future evaluations will further assist in defining the goals and boundaries for mentors and structuralizing the project.
“We’ll evaluate this year’s mentor project early in 2008,” Zoethout says. “We expect some changes in the initial welcoming and meet and greet at the airport, and also the communication with the faculties needs to be improved. But the TU will certainly be continuing this project.”
Despite the bumps in the road already traveled and the many challenges that still lie ahead, the TU’s mentor program has been a resounding success thus far. As one new student said of his experience in his mentor group: “It’s been the happiest part of my life here until now and really cured me of my homesickness. I really hope my friendships with the people in my mentor group will last forever!”
A mentor group visits amsterdam (Photo: Michael Afanasyev)
The mentor project was launched two years ago on initiative of the VSSD student union. The union realized that new foreign students who didn’t know their way around might be facing considerable social isolation and need some extra guidance in their first months in Delft and Holland. Fortunately, about the same time, TU Delft’s International Office (InOf) also came to the same conclusion, so when the VSSD approached the head of the InOf, John Stals, with the idea, he responded enthusiastically.
Last year, a pilot mentor project was launched to test the concept. Six mentor groups were formed and incoming foreign students were asked if they wanted to participate: the responses were overwhelming affirmative.
Krista Zoethout is responsible for managing the project for InOf: “When we got five times more requests for participating in the pilot than we could provide mentors for, we knew we had a very relevant project and that it needed to be expanded. It was a bit difficult to coordinate it with the mentor activities that some faculties also provided simultaneously, but the pilot project taught us a lot and our project is a great success.”
The mentors were recruited via advertisements on the TU’s Blackboard and carefully selected according to tough criteria, such as international experience, good communication skills and knowledge of the TU’s internal structure. The chosen mentors then received additional training in intercultural communication.
Bart van Bueren, a recent architecture graduate, was one of the mentors of the pilot project: “Having spent six months in the US, I was especially interested in the internationalization of education. I enjoyed mentoring, and the contact with people from different backgrounds and cultures was very valuable for an architect.”
The mentor groups held weekly status meetings and arranged various social activities, like visiting other Dutch cities and dining together. Thomas Poiesz was the VSSD board member responsible for the evaluating the pilot project: “The results were clear: the mentors were very happy with their roles and the students were positive about the experience. One weak point however was the initial welcoming meeting, which was chaotic at best. Also, we noticed that the need for mentoring was greatest in the first two months, before declining rapidly after the first exams. Students have also dropped out of mentor groups, which is unfortunate considering the costs involved in setting up the pilot.”
Upscaling
While the evaluation showed that students preferred a mixed group, when the project was extended to the whole student body the choice was made for faculty-based groups.
“Some faculties run similar programs and faculties organize their own activities,” Zoethout explains. “The people there also have knowledge of specific areas that we cannot relate to from central administration. The mentors now provide a faculty-related role in addition to social guidance.”
Mentors are also positive about the change in set-up. “Students have more affiliation with students from their own faculties,” Van Bueren says. “I think the change to faculty-based groups will work positively.” The transition was, however, not entirely smooth. While some essentials changed in the upscaling of the project to the whole influx of foreign students, some flaws remained.
The introductory meeting this year, when 650 new arrivals were meeting their mentors for the first time while trying to scavenge some free food from the barbeque, was even more chaotic than last year, although this was partially due to tenfold increase in attendance. Mentors also complained about lack of clarity: not having received any instructions as to what their jobs are actually supposed to be (or not to be).
The faculties are now responsible for the recruitment and organization of mentorships, but they seem to lack clear guidelines as to what the mentors are actually supposed to do. The situation is further complicated by the great divergence in the amount of students per faculty: some faculties have only one mentor group, others up to 15, and some 100 students.
Apparently the division of roles between the faculties and InOf, and the right mix of the social/faculty-related roles of the mentors, still needs to be worked out in more detail. Nevertheless, TU students being what they are, most of the mentors were quite capable of successfully inventing their own roles, since the initial feedback from the students has been very positive.
The role of the mentor is seemingly quite self-explanatory, as most mentor groups ultimately engaged in similar activities, like city trips and visiting student societies, while a session of human chess played at the Delftsche Zwervers was mentioned by one mentored student as an example of an activity that made a unique impression.
Mentors however did report some lack of interest for the meetings on the student side, which is something that can be partially blamed on the workload for MSc students at TU Delft. Another problem seems to be that students of similar origins tend to cling to each other: once they had found students from their home countries, they preferred to socialize with them rather than attend mentoring activities. But even though mentors are sometimes frustrated by “annoying people disturbing group processes”, as one of mentor said, they are more than happy to give crash courses in Dutch culture and Delft student life.
The TU’s mentor project is a living one, being constantly re-evaluated. Mentors receive further coaching from the TU’s FOCUS Centre of Expertise in Education, which is responsible for implementing projects in the field of educational innovation. Future evaluations will further assist in defining the goals and boundaries for mentors and structuralizing the project.
“We’ll evaluate this year’s mentor project early in 2008,” Zoethout says. “We expect some changes in the initial welcoming and meet and greet at the airport, and also the communication with the faculties needs to be improved. But the TU will certainly be continuing this project.”
Despite the bumps in the road already traveled and the many challenges that still lie ahead, the TU’s mentor program has been a resounding success thus far. As one new student said of his experience in his mentor group: “It’s been the happiest part of my life here until now and really cured me of my homesickness. I really hope my friendships with the people in my mentor group will last forever!”
A mentor group visits amsterdam (Photo: Michael Afanasyev)
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