When you reach a certain level of postgraduate education, you’ve probably noticed that most of the time you’ve been mentored and guided throughout the study. Your faculty member must have played an important part as mentees and have assisted you on writing your thesis, conducting research or preparing to a lecture as a future university teacher. Moreover, mentorship is not only a social or educational phenomenon but more of a study with its subject, goal, and approaches. All of these categories can be included in your postgraduate papers as a guarantee of your readiness to take the place of a mentor yourself.
Should you be in need of samples of mentorship essays, feel free to scroll down and see our free 200-word examples.
Mentorship Essay Example 1 (223 words)
Humanity has been struggling with finding a means of how to preserve, transfer and teach the knowledge of previous generations throughout the centuries. Apart from having found use of books, documents, and folklore, people have also realized that a sufficient way to keep such information intact and ensure its ability to roam from person to person is mentorship. The history and evolution of this phenomenon, now, is a subject of study and research.
Originating from the name of Odysseus’ friend, Mentor whose disguise was borrowed by Athena, a Greek goddess of wisdom and war, to help Odysseus on his way to Troja, the word now has become a symbol of loyalty and guidance.
Also, Hinduists and Buddhists still believe that every person possesses the knowledge of what has already happened and what is yet to come, but only a few chosen ones, the Elders, can reach that knowledge and pass it along to others.
When it comes to the 20th century, the word mentor has become more practical rather than spiritual and, is usually referred to people with expertise on a narrow branch, e.g., academic supervisor, workplace manager, motivation mentor, etc.
All in all, even though mentorship has evolved from its primordial meaning, it still designates a person whose professional, or life experience is yet to be passed along.
Mentorship Essay Example 2 (213 words)
Even though one is considered a role model in a field of study or profession, having vast knowledge and deep understanding of a subject doesn’t imply being a proper mentor to a young professional. Becoming a mentor to a person whose career is still at the crossroads is a challenge, and it requires a lot of soft skills apart from professional experience. So, what are the main cornerstones of mentoring?
First of all, connecting and establishing a friendly relationship is believed to be a basis of any professional co-operation. Researchers DuBois and Karcher are convinced that academic adaptation is strongly dependent on a person’s feeling of importance, mostly, as a person rather than a professional.
Second of all, evaluation of a mentee is a process of thorough understanding of a person’s initial strength. A mentor’s main requirement is the ability to assess and analyze a trained individual’s asset that a field of study can benefit from. Therefore, finding such virtues and using them for the person’s goodness are priorities of mentorship.
Lastly, mentorship as a social construct is based on the constant interaction of people who are bound by social and professional norms. A mentor should always consider and reconsider the possibility of building their protégé’s career and skills through continuous practice and interpersonal interaction.
Mentorship Essay Example 3 (223 words)
Paul Soderberg has said once ‘More than mere teachers, mentors are often emancipators, freeing artists from poor technique, clouded vision, and personal uncertainty.’ Is it true that mentorship is a valuable part of our society? I believe yes, and for this, I would like to state my reasons.
First of all, mentoring is a way of transmitting one person’s knowledge to another, and it’s completed by intertwining a mentor’s experience with the taught knowledge. In other words, a mentee receives not only basic theory on how to be a good teacher, researcher, linguist or doctor, but also a life-saving kit on how to avoid mistakes that have been made before.
Second of all, mentorship favors a fresh individual’s perspective on different aspects. Not only it can help develop skills needed to gain certain experience, but also it widens one’s understanding of a field through a mentor’s eyes.
Third of all, a mentor-mentee relationship is known to become long-lasting friendships. Often, people who have been supervised by professors tend to come back to them when they are in need of advice, which strengthens a faculty.
As a conclusion, I would like to say that I agree with Paul Soderberg’s definition of mentorship. I’m convinced that it’s a valuable part of our society that helps us keep intact the very principles of our humanity.
Mentorship Essay Example 4 (227 words)
In the world of unimaginable inventions, the high-speed Internet and constant update of content and information the word ‘mentor’ has changed its initial meaning and has mostly become a rudiment of past days. Does a human still have to be mentored or is it time to let go of the past and move forward to individual and independent future?
I believe that mentorship is a relic of the past and should be excluded from college systems. From the very beginning mentorship as created as a means to bend one’s personality to established and anti-democratic stigmas which were traditional for a society.
Moreover, having mentors, supervisors or, simply, the elderly as a higher-standing individual it encourages the oppression and segregation of one’s perspectives and opinions. Not only that young, motivated people are forced to obey to an experienced and entitled patron but also the prospects and opportunity for thinking differently, in a new dimension that is not influenced by old-established dogmas, is eliminated.
Most importantly, mentorship is a supportive device for the old social segregation and class system that divides people into groups of the more and less influential by the power of titles, privileges and other attributes.
In the end, I would like to say that I consider mentorship to be a leftover from the past. It decelerates the society’s potential for new social and cognitive development.
