Mentor – Mentee

Even though the school is starting on Wednesday, I was there already on Saturday and Monday as well. And you might ask. Why?

At the end of the second semester, I have signed to be a mentor. Being a mentor at VIA means helping new students with becoming a successful student.

Many of the international students face the same challenges every year. New school, new friends, Danish weather, long nights, teachers, assignments, looking for work and many more. The challenges are still the same. And if those before us could do it, we can do it!

And my role in all this is to help my mentees to realize that they can do it. It might not be the easiest thing. But if they wanted an easy life, they would not have moved to a new country.

On Saturday we had a seminar with HR specialist, who told us many interesting things about body language, attitude to life, the importance of the first impression, motivation and self-improvement. The guy who taught us all these things was truly impressing. Strict and definitely not politically correct. He was intentionally trying to push us a tiny bit out of our comfort zone. Sometimes he was offending us, pointing out stereotypes about people. Things that are usually not talked about. He was not afraid of telling us how things really are.

So at the end of the day, we were leaving school little bit wiser and hopefully ready to help our future mentees.

On Monday, we met pretty early in the morning, we put yellow vests and hard hats on and served as a live arrow guide to help all 1200 new students to get into right classrooms.

And in the afternoon, we met our mentees for the first time and guided them around the campus. And then we went to socialize a bit, grabbed something to drink and listened to our stories, shared few tips with them. And it turned out to be really great.

That is how my first two unofficial days at school have been. But the real deal starts on Wednesday.

Let’s do it.

Cheers