Importance of Mentoring in Student Life and Career

 

To begin the article on this topic I searched in the Internet of proverbs on mentoring. Then got the website https://www.geteverwise.com/mentoring/20-inspiring-mentorship-quotes/ and two quotes I liked most:

1. “The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” — Steven Spielberg

2. “A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you.” — Bob Proctor

Some of us grow up in a typical Indian joint family surrounded by our parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Most of us do not get the exposure of joint family and grew in a nucleus family. Now a days the mentoring of a student mostly starts from the parents only. If parents can not give time for mentoring to their child, then it is often done by a teacher in school. In good schools, teachers identify the talents in you in some sphere and encourages you to hone the skills. All of us have are good in at least one field. Some does good painting, some does good singing, some does good in studies, some are good in sports, and so on. It is definitely not necessary that all will do excellent in studies. If we give little bit extra efforts in that field where we have natural fluency, we can quickly excel. But then, if I am not that good in studies, then is not there any hope for me in studies? Of course, hope is there always. Only difference is that, I need to spend much more time and effort to reach at a certain level.

So, a mentor can be your parent or someone in your family, or your teacher in school/college, or your senior in college/university, or your project manager in company, or just your boss in your job. If you look at any successful person and get a chance to ask her/him the question: "do you recognize role of any mentor behind your success", I believe, most people will answer in affirmative. Of course, the major credit of being successful must go to the person herself/himself. But the caring, kind words, encouragement, inspiration, motivation, visionary wisdom received from the mentor definitely plays very vital role to sail through.

Now, the mentor often gets changed as you move on from school to college, college to university, and ultimately in your profession. Mentor spots your quality and then starts showering her/his experience, knowledge with you during insightful discussion during work or often during tea time or such times. Sometimes, we find ourselves to be in trouble for some reasons, and then these mentors actually guide us to come out of the fearful situations.

That is why many organizations have started to adopt the concept of mentorship formally. Whenever, a new incumbent joins the organization, then that new comer is assigned with one particular mentor or a group of mentors.

Now you may argue, if someone is not that lucky to be spotted by a mentor, is not there any hope for her? Surely, there is hope, always. If we do not get direct mentorship, we do get indirect mentoring from various sources such as Internet, lives and teachings of great personalities, good novels or movies, or even the nature.

The point I wanted to share with you is that, if you really want to excel and you have some potential, then in some way or other you will get the directions towards excellence, which is often in the form of mentoring. At the end, I would like to conclude with the popular quotation used in Hindi movie: “kehte hain, agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho to puri kayanat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai.”