The USC is making an effort to connect our student leaders with the professional business community

utilizing our very own USC Alumni Network. The USC Mentorship program engages our student leaders

in experiencing professional job shadowing opportunities, consultation opportunities and developing

lasting relationships with professionals that possess experience and skills in areas they are considering

as a career, or in particular industries that are of interest to them to explore.

 

The USC Mentorship Program is designed to connect our student leaders with USC alumni, allowing

them the opportunity to gain valuable experience and advice for career development. The relationship

between the mentors and the mentees is viewed as a partnership and the length of the mentorship

match is dependent on what tier of involvement the mentor and mentee engage. The Mentorship

program is not intended as a job placement service for our student leaders, but is offered as a tool for

seeking career path advice from successful and experienced USC alumni.

 

Mentees involved in the program can expect to gain relative experience and knowledge as well as foster

genuine and lasting relationships with their mentors through job shadowing opportunities, email and

phone communication and potential one-on- one meetings (depending on availability and location).

Mentors involved in the program are motivated by a common passion; their experience with the USC, as

well as the opportunity to provide support and guidance to the next generation of highly driven

individuals. Mentors derive gratification from witnessing mentees become more confident and

professionally creative having gained more insight and knowledge.

 

 

Vision: Foster mutual enrichment through mentor-mentee relationships by:

 Returning to your roots and getting involved with the USC

 Broadening perspectives of yourself and your mentee

 Inspiring personal and professional development

 

Mission: The USC Mentorship program strives towards the creation of valuable relationships and the

enrichment of perspectives by engaging student leaders with USC Alumni industry professionals.

 

The program aims to prepare mentees to identify interests and passions aligned with personal values

and professional goals. This is an opportunity for our student leaders to experience a higher level of

support when they leave their terms in office with the USC and head out into the working world.

 

The program provides the opportunity for mentors to pass along personal experiences, advice and

support to our student leaders by having been a part of the same unique experience and environment

with attributing the perspective of life moving forward from the USC and where they are today.

 

Three Tiers of Mentorship:

 

Consulting

This form of mentorship can range from one-time phone calls or emails from student leaders to a

mentor requesting support or advice with a particular task or issue they are experiencing during their

term in office (ie. budget, governance, troubleshooting, etc) to a continuous conversation or one-on- one

meetings with regards to an ongoing task or issue (strategic planning, crisis communications, issues

management, etc). The expectation for mentors involved in consulting would be to make available to

respond to the occasional email or phone call from our student leaders. These mentors would volunteer

themselves, or be approached by program staff should a student leader be looking for an alumni that is

well versed in a particular topic. The goal of this tier of mentorship is to provide student leaders with

support while they are in office and working through tasks and issues in which they are looking for

support.

 

Job Shadowing

This form of mentorship would be executed with the mentee visiting the mentors’ place of employment

and shadowing them for one half or one full day; depending on the agreement between the two

individuals. The goal of this tier of mentorship is to provide the student leader with a realistic

perspective of what a day in the life of, would look like should they choose to look for work in that

particular industry or profession. Since our student leaders are embarking on a very important milestone

entering into the workforce and deciding on what path to follow with their careers, it is a great

opportunity for the mentee to experience in person what a particular job would be like.

 

Mentor/Mentee Matches

This form of mentorship would be viewed as a temporary partnership with the length of each match last

a duration of approximately four months (one term). Should the mentor and mentee develop a

relationship that would exist to surpass the four month term is at the discretion of the individual parties.

The goal of this tier of mentorship is to provide the student leader with advice or support either during

their term in office, or providing the mentee with support while they are transitioning out of their

leadership role and moving into the workforce and adjusting to life after the USC. Again, the Mentorship

program is not intended as a job placement service, but is being offered as a tool for student leaders

seeking on-the- job or career path advice (or both) from experienced USC alumni.

 

For the Mentors:

Mentors can be located anywhere in the world to participate, as majority of the support that our

mentors will provide (with the exception of job shadowing), can rely strictly on communication via

phone or email. Having said that, the goal of obtaining mentors is to essentially compile a pool of

mentors in which we can group according to profession, experiences, or topics that the mentors would

be interested in providing support on. This way, when our student leaders provide the program staff

with their preferred criteria, we are able to look at our pool and choose mentors based on these

categories to ensure we are matching appropriately. There is no minimum time restriction required to

participate as a mentor; you may be called on once in a student leaders term (June – May), or you may

be called on occasionally over a number of years; it is dependent on the needs of the student leaders

each year.