The University of Helsinki group mentoring programme’s mentor introductions for the season 2022–2023 have been published. The application period starts on Monday 26h of September at 12pm, but you can now familiarize yourself with the mentor introductions beforehand. The programme kicks off in November.
The programme offers a choice of 33 mentors (7 English speaking), who are University of Helsinki alumni representing different fields in society. The background of studying at the University of Helsinki joins them all all. Some of them will only mentor remotely. You may read their descriptions on the programmes website here.
You can also read more about the group mentoring programme on the website. The application link will be published on the Sign up -page on Monday 26th at 12pm. You can also get to know the pre-assignment which need to be handed in with the application form.
The closing event of the group mentoring programme was organised on Zoom.
Launched in November 2021, the 11th group mentoring programme concluded in May. The programme was based mostly on remote meetings. The next programme will begin in the autumn.
The 11th University of Helsinki group mentoring programme began in late November with a kick-off session organised remotely. The programme brought together 139 actors from almost all University faculties and 36 alumni–mentors from various sectors of society.
According to the coordinating team, among the programme’s strengths were the fully remote group activities. This can be seen as a positive aspect of the remote period. The remote groups also enabled alumni living elsewhere in Finland or even abroad to participate as mentors.
In the wrap-up session, students and mentors had another chance to share their experiences and engage in a final discussion with their fellow group members. They also exchanged comments and feedback, which we have compiled into the summary below. The coordination team would like to thank all mentors and actors for their participation!
Mentors’ comments on their experiences:
The young people provided me with new thoughts and ideas. I also found more energy for my own work!
I was really inspired and in a good mood after each meeting. Two of the actors succeeded in finding a job, and also we explored many experiences of working while studying.
The mentoring programme was definitely the highlight of the beginning of the year. First of all, it was interesting to meet current students whose reality is so different from mine in the 1980s.
I gained a new perspective on my work. Above all, I am now even more grateful than before for my job, which the actors said was evident. I completed all assignments with my actors, which helped me assess my own skills. I also received valuable feedback from the actors. In addition, the mentoring will support the development of a mentoring project tailored to a different target group in my workplace.
We shared the responsibility for each meeting between the actors. With each actor responsible for the practical arrangements of at least one meeting, the roles in the group were clear. The guidelines agreed at the beginning were also deemed important because they committed the participants to the process.
The closing event featured a presentation about mentoring from an actor’s point of view.
Actors’ comments on their experiences:
We talked about the current work situation, how to handle daily work life challenges, how to prioritise tasks, how to prepare already for future job opportunities, where to look for job opportunities, LinkedIn profile building, CV writing.
I think my group is just perfect. We talked about the culture here, CV, competencies, LinkedIn, and many other things. Everyone can talk freely and it’s just like meeting friends. We had several remote meetings and met in person (and also hybrid). The remote meeting worked OK, but I still prefer meeting in person.
I thought everything worked well and would recommend this programme to anyone, so I only have positive things to say!
I gained clarity about my own skills, personal characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, field-specific skills, job-seeking, job interviews, master’s thesis opportunities and future prospects. I found all these to be very useful topics, and it was precisely because of them that I applied for the programme. We mostly met face-to-face, which made the meetings more successful.
It was a safe space to discuss worries and concerns about professional prospects after my degree. I received some good advice and encouragement.
I’ll take away greater self-knowledge and lots of peer-support! Next, I will try to put all I’ve learned into practice as I start a new job.
I take with me inspiration and more confidence to continue my studies and to search new jobs.
We learned how to recognise our skills and connect them to our experiences and interests and thus we gained confidence
Feedback helps develop programme from year to year
Mentoring is an interactive process, and each experience of mentoring is unique. Critique is also important and used to develop the programme each year.
Based on this year’s feedback, for example, the introductory and advance material used in the programme will be clarified so that the kick-off session can focus increasingly on launching collaborative group activities. The content of the collaborative sessions will also be made more engaging.
Communication between the coordination team, the mentors and the actors also plays an important role throughout the programme. To address challenging or difficult situations in good time, communication with participants will be increased, for instance, by collecting interim feedback.
The next programme begins in November 2022 – you can express your interest now!
The University of Helsinki will continue to organise the group mentoring programme, with the next programme scheduled to begin in November 2022. Mentors should be University of Helsinki alumni. Further information on the application process for new mentors will be provided through the Helsinki Alumni channels, but you can already express your interest in becoming a mentor. The official application form will open in August.
Alumni interested in mentoring can send an email to alumni(at)helsinki.fi.
Students will be able to apply for mentoring groups in autumn 2022. Information will be published on this website and in the Studies service.
Students can obtain further information on group mentoring from Career Services: careerservices(at)helsinki.fi.
The student application period for the 2021-2022 season of the programme has closed. Thank you to all applicants!
We will inform everyone who has applied to programme during October. The kick-off event for the programme is on November 24th and before this separate Q&A-sessions will be organised for both mentors and actors on November 16th.
The application period for group mentoring programme has been extended until 14th of October 2021. Most of the English speaking groups are already full, but there’s still room in two of the English speaking ones. Read more about the mentors and sign up fast!
The group mentoring 2021–2022 starts in November and it is the 11th season of the programme. Students can apply by the 10ht of October. The groups will be filled in order of registration, so act fast!
In group mentoring you as a student will get the opportunity to discuss different career paths and their strengths related to job hunting. The group brings added value, as students receive the support not only of their mentors, but also peers in the same situation.
After the previous season of the group mentoring programme 100 % of the actors and mentors who answered to the feedback survey recommended taking part in the mentoring process!
– I came to understand my strengths better and got many new ideas for searching for a job and developing my professional skills, says one of the actors who participated in programme previously.
7 ENGLISH-SPEAKING MENTORING GROUPS (45 IN TOTAL)
The application time for students is 27th of September–10th of October 2021. The groups will be filled in order of registration and you need to hand in an assignment with the application. This year there are groups that will meet completely remotely and groups which can decide together if they want to meet live.
The programme is being organized for the 11th time and the following events are for all participants:
Question hours for mentors and actors in Zoom 16.11. on Zoom (16–17 pm for actors)
The group mentoring kick-off on 24.11.2021 at 17.00–19.00 on Zoom
Group meetings (5–6 times)
The group mentoring closing on May 23rd, 2022.
The programme offers a choice of 45 mentors (7 English speaking), who are University of Helsinki alumni representing different fields in society. The background of studying at the University of Helsinki joins them all all. You may read their descriptions on the programmes website here.
The University of Helsinki Group mentoring programme’s mentor introducations for the season 2021–2022 have been published. The application period starts on Monday 27th of September at 12am, but you can now familiarize yourself with the mentor introductions beforehand. The programme kicks off in November.
The programme offers a choice of 45 mentors (7 English speaking), who are University of Helsinki alumni representing different fields in society. The background of studying at the University of Helsinki joins them all all. Some of them will only mentor remotely. You may read their descriptions mentors 2021 – 2022 page.
The group mentoring program 2021–2022 will start again in November, and we are now looking for mentors for students.
You now have a great opportunity to help students towards graduation and working life. This is already the 11th group mentoring programme at our university!
Group mentoring means sharing your own skills and life experience with a small group of students at different stages of study. 2–4 students are selected for the group. Language of the groups can be Finnish, Swedish or English. Students of the University of Helsinki need support from alumni of their own fields. You now have the opportunity to provide this support in the students’ path towards graduation and working life!
Applying for the 2021–2022 Group Mentoring Programme as a mentor
The group mentoring programme of 2021–2022 will be kicked off with an initial meeting on November 24th 2021. A final meeting will be organized in May 2022.
The joint events for this season of the mentoring programme begin remotely. However, the groups can meet face to face during the mentoring programme depending on the situation of the pandemic and their own decision. You can participate in remote events through Zoom. To participate, you need a computer, smartphone or tablet. Between the initial and final meeting the mentoring groups will meet approximately once a month.
The mentors gathered together to share good practices on Zoom.
The interim meeting of the group mentoring programme held in late February brought together mentors to share their experiences of the programme launched in November. For most mentoring groups, February and March denote the midpoint of their collaborative journey, a fitting time for sharing well-functioning practices with others.
Like the sessions in November, the interim meeting was held via Zoom, with mentors from around Finland and the world attending. Before the actual group discussions, the mentors had the chance to hear about matters related to career planning and job seeking at the University. Anna Storgårds from Career Services described the current and future support measures related to career planning at the University, as well as developments in the field.
“At Career Services, we are adopting a new theoretical framework in which career skills are analysed through five different types of capital acquired during studies. This capital relates to, among other things, networking, getting to know parties active in the field, understanding the cultural codes of different organisations and career planning. In all this, mentoring holds a key role,” Storgårds said.
Varied experiences of group dynamics and remote connections
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, remote connections have been used for all meetings. Some have adapted to this well, as scheduling has been easier. However, some mentors who had contributed to the programme earlier felt that group dynamics were not necessarily as close-knit as in face-to-face meetings.
Experiences of good practices were also shared in the discussions, with some mentors describing how their actors had assumed an active role in organising meetings. The Workbook for mentoring had also been helpful in planning meetings and allocating questions from the actors under specific themes for individual sessions.
“While the students in my group are in fairly different stages of their lives, all of them are approaching the transition to the labour market in one way or another,” one mentor commented.
Anna Storgårds talked about the importance of career planning in her presentation at the interim meeting for mentors.
Important observations were also made on the role of the mentor in the process as a whole. Mentoring is a process based on volunteering, where the mentor can share their personal knowledge and experience.
“It’s important to keep in mind that the mentor is not expected to serve as a therapist, a supervisor of studies or an employment agent. Mentoring as a process should be reciprocal so that the mentor can, for example, listen and share their knowledge and experience. The role can vary and be shaped by the group dynamics,” someone pointed out in the meeting.
In conjunction with this term, the coordinating team of the mentoring programme intends to collect feedback, especially on the pros and cons of remote arrangements and meetings.
“This is a new situation for everyone, so it’s important to collect valuable lessons gained this year to further develop the mentoring programme for subsequent terms. Feedback and questions can of course be sent to the coordinating team any time already before the term ends,” notes Salla Wilén from Career Services.
The 10th group mentoring term will continue until May, at which time a joint wrap-up session will be held. Due to the prevailing coronavirus situation, the rest of the term will continue to be held online.
Other Career Services content and services in support of job seeking and career planning for students and recent graduates have been compiled under theTraineeshipsandWork and careersections on the Instructions for Students website.
Mentors and actors can reach out to the coordinating team any time during the mentoring term by writing to careerservices(at)helsinki.fi.
Photo from the Group Mentoring Programme kick-off in 2017. Mentor Leena Korppoo with her group.
More than 900 hundred students, 250 alumni mentors and countless hours spent with meaningful career discussions. Group mentoring at the University of Helsinki is already a modern tradition.
The Group Mentoring Programme kicks off with a celebration year this November. It is the 10th season of the programme and 10th anniversary since its first pilot for the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry in 2010. During this time the programme has gotten a lot of recognition for enhancing the employability and work life skills of university students, for example from Sitra (article in Finnish).
In its first years the programme consisted only of a few groups but since then, it has expanded to all of the faculties at the University. The main objective has remained the same: to provide support for students in their career planning with the help of an alumni-mentor as well as with the peer-support from other students.
“One of the main reasons I wanted to join the mentoring programme was the certain kind of insecurity and lack of self-confidence in my professional skills and I can definitely say that mentoring gave me confidence with these matters”, says a students who participated in group mentoring in 2016–2017.
Group mentoring kick-off in 2018 in Think Corner
Background in ”mini mentoring” created by a student organisation
The University of Helsinki Group Mentoring Programme model was first developed based on the “mini-mentoring” created by the alumni council of Status, the student organization for Social Psychology.
– There was a need for new tools to support the career planning of Master’s Degree students. We had seen some forms of pair mentoring at the University, but we wanted to create something that could measure up the high student amounts at the University of Helsinki in terms of mentoring, says Eric Carver who worked at the University Career Services at the time (currently at the Strategic Services for Teaching).
The first Group Mentoring Programme was piloted for the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry in 2010. After positive results, the programme was developed further in cooperation with Career Services, Alumni Relations and the VALOA –project at the University of Helsinki. The programme was unique at the time since group mentoring hadn’t been seen in Finland as such before.
In 2012 the Group Mentoring Programme was introduced at the University in cooperation with the Faculty of Social Sciences and Aleksanteri Institute. This model was already close to the current form of mentoring, in which an experienced alumni mentors a small group of students.
Group mentoring from 2016.
“As a mentor, I feel like I can help the students with the practical questions the university studies do not necessarily give and answer to: what are the skills valued in the working life? How do I apply for different kinds of jobs”, said Otto Mattsson 2017, having participated in the programme as a mentor several times..
From a few groups to a multidisciplinary, university-wide programme
Since the first programme in Spring 2012, group mentoring has grown to its current form step by step. In the second season, the Faculty of Educational Sciences (formerly Behavioral sciences) and the Faculty of Arts (FHKT-department) joined the programme. Nowadays Career Services and the HelsinkiAlumni-network coordinate the programme.
– Every year our goal is to gather our mentors with the objective that there are appealing groups for students in as many of our faculties as possible. What this means is that we seek mentors from various sectors of working life and with different study backgrounds, Career Councelor Salla Wilén from the Career Services and Liason Manager Marja Peltomäki from alumni relations explain.
Multidisciplinary also gives mentoring its own special characteristics, since the group formation is not only based on the field of study. A group might consist of e.g. students of arts, biology and environmental studies as well as students of science.
– Multidisciplinary was introduced in 2016 and the feedback has been positive every year. In working life study, backgrounds are mixed either way so it is natural to acknowledge this also in mentoring, the coordination team of the programme comments.
Mentoring gives you the opportunity to reflect on your career and life choices all the way from your studies. In that respect mentoring is rewarding for the mentor as well, commented Päivi Vuorinen in 2016 in her second year as a mentor.
Development steps with internationalization, workbook for mentoring and mentoring videos
Internationality has been an essential part of the programme since 2014, when English and Swedish speaking groups were introduced to the programme. At the time this addition was in line with the internationalization strategy of the university. In 2019, the programme participated in the International talents accelerating growth –project and as a result, the amount of English speaking groups was increased.
– In this season we have 8 English speaking groups. There are both Finnish and international students in these groups which is great for their mutual networking, says Career Counselor Anna Storgårds who works in the project.
The training of mentors and actors for the mentoring process has been a part of the programme from the beginning. The first mentoring guide book was released already in 2012. The current Workbook for Mentoring (2017) was created in cooperation between Career Services, HR Development of Occupational and Wellbeing unit and Tevere Oy and it has received a lot of positive feedback.
– We hand out the Workbook for everyone at the beginning of the process but it is also available free of charge online. Our groups use the Workbook actively but we’ve also received recognition and reference requests from other organisations who want to use is in their own mentoring programmes, Career Services staff comments.
In addition to the Workbook, mentors and actors also receive guide videos created by Tevere Oy, in which they are instructed the basic of a mentoring process.
“The group was excellent. At first I thought mentoring would work best as a pair, but I think I was wrong – a group provided five times the joy! I heard more experiences and received peer support”, comments a student who participated in the programme in 2013-2014.
Mentoring supports career planning online as well
Career Services is currently making a theoretical change to the graduate capital model in terms of career planning. In this model, the student’s expertise is seen as a whole formed by different capitals: human, social, cultural, psychological and identity capital. Group mentoring supports all of these capitals.
– The capital model is a holistic view of resources connected to yourself, your operational environments and the skills you have within your career and employability. They are what formulates what we call expertise, explains Wilén.
The 10-year anniversary season begins in exceptional circumstances as the COVID-situation has moved the programme completely online. However, this also has a positive impact: this season the programme has variety of mentors participating not only from the Helsinki-capital region, but also from around Finland and the globe. There are 37 mentors and 139 actors participating in the programme, which is the highest number since beginning of the programme
– There is a high demand for mentoring at the moment. The online version of the mentoring programme will certainly bring us new learning experiences with technical solutions but also in how the group forming process works out in distance. We are looking forward to this season, says the coordination team of the Group Mentoring Programme.
The kick-off for the 10th season was organised on Zoom this year.
University of Helsinki
