Alumni Mentors are “Awesome”

You can be, too!
Sue Verrillo MSN ’03, Vice President, JHNAA

Several months ago we began our maiden voyage into the world of mentoring, and we’re off to a great start! We paired 58 alumni mentors in the Baltimore-D.C. region with 63 students from the current senior class (which unfortunately left five students on a waiting list).

The mentors and students had an initial face-to-face meeting and then set their own mutually acceptable meeting schedule. Mentors focus on being a friend, listener, and successful practitioner who can be sympathetic and offer advice on things like people skills, time management, life-work balance, and other intangibles. We made it clear that the mentor was not the source of a job nor would they compete with instructors or preceptors.

We surveyed the mentors and mentees at the end of the semester and had a great response rate. We asked them:

What have you particularly enjoyed about the mentoring program so far?

Alumni mentors:

• Seeing the excitement for our discipline in the eyes of another.
• Listening to the student describe her future goals and how she expects to achieve them.
• Fun to meet a new, young nurse with her whole career ahead of her.

Student mentees:

• My mentor is in my field of interest. She gave me amazing advice, and we continue to correspond with each other.
• My mentor is awesome. She is very dedicated to helping me find a career path in line with my long-term goals.
• Talking to her! Exploring what kind of different pathways are available for nursing school. So many to choose from.

Won’t you consider participating? We will soon start recruiting for next year’s senior class and would love to include you as a mentor. Our goal is to have 150 mentors—one for every student.

Please contact the Alumni Office ([email protected]) to sign up. We hope we can count on you to assist the next class of Hopkins nurses!