With e-mentoring, students and working members can both learn

Henry Baumgartner
ASME NEWS

When she was studying to be an aerospace engineer at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, the advice that Faye Tomimbang got from her e-mentor was, "Go for something you'd like, and pursue that as a career."

"It was great to talk to someone who's been through it all and could give me an idea of what I should be doing, what I could look forward to, a glimpse of the world, which is pretty different from school," Tomimbang said of her experience with ASME's e-mentoring program.

This ASME initiative is gearing up for its second year of pairing working ASME members with student members who are interested in the advice that members working in industry or academia can impart. Mentors and mentorees communicate by e-mail, thus obviating any problems of geography or scheduling. Ideally, they exchange messages at least every week or two.

Last year, 136 ASME members signed up to be mentors. Tomimbang and her mentor were among the 100 student/mentor matches made during the program's debut year.

ASME members who would like to serve as mentors this year are asked to submit a brief description of their interests and career activities. These resumes are then posted on the ASME Web site, www. asme.org/ementoring, for students seeking a mentor.

After reviewing the posted resumes, student members send their preferences to ASME, where they are matched with a mentor. Each party receives the e-mail address of the other. From there on, it's up to them.

Although the purpose of the e-mentoring program is to offer professional guidance to student members, as Larry Bethel, a mechanical engineer with Northrop Grumman in Sunnyvale, Calif., found out, the learning experience is not confined to the mentoree.

"It's been interesting, because I had the notion that I'd be the one pontificating, or providing the information. But the mentoree would ask difficult and illuminating questions, and I've been learning from it as much as he has," said Bethel, who has been e-mentoring a student member for the past year.

Bethel had wanted to create a local mentoring program, of the face-to-face variety, and signed up to be a mentor to get some experience. Through the e-mentoring program, however, he found that people are "more willing to share when it's somewhat anonymous," as in an e-mail correspondence.

Asked if being an e-mentor ever seemed like a burden, Bethel said, "An e-mail now and then doesn't take any scheduled time." This is important, as Bethel was recently elected vice chair of ASME's Santa Clara Valley Section, and he is also active in the Silicon Valley Engineering Council.

Bethel found himself giving his mentoree — who went back to school to do graduate work in vibration in turbomachinery — information not only about technical matters but on more general, even personal ones — what sort of work to go into, whether to continue with graduate studies, even an upcoming marriage. Bethel himself had just gotten married.

"He'd expressed frustration on a previous job with the organizational behavior." One of the mentoree's managers would ask him to do something, while another, who controlled the purse strings, refused to cooperate. How to work out situations like this one may not be apparent to a newer engineer, Bethel explained.

John Nolin, a product specialist at SolidWorks Corp. in Concord, Mass., has counseled two e-mentorees, one of whom asked to keep in touch when the school year was over. That student member wanted Nolin's advice on subjects such as a research project, a summer internship and whether to take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam.

Nolan, like Bethel, said he was glad he had signed up for the program. Both men said that they plan to continue in the e-mentoring program for the 2001-2002 school year.

Spencer L. Broderick, an e-mentoree who is going for his master's at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, found that the program exceeded his expectations. His mentor gave "a very useful picture of what the world of engineering is really like. It's inspiring to talk to engineers who are in industry right now."

His mentor was always there to answer questions, Broderick said, "almost like a father/son thing."

The topics Broderick and his mentor discussed included how involved ASME members were in the mechanical engineering professional community as a whole, what professional opportunities have been the most rewarding, what would be the most valuable skills to acquire early in one's career, and whether an attitude of service prevails in the engineering community.

"He was always very respectful of my questions, even when I was afraid they sounded like dumb ones," Broderick said, adding that the replies were usually detailed.

Broderick, who is studying heat transfer and thermodynamics with a view to working in the field of computer cooling systems, found that his mentor, whose field is plant managing and power systems, had a wide breadth of knowledge about the field. As his mentor explained, "The more you can get your hands into, the more different areas you can learn about, the more valuable you can become."

Tomimbang, who graduated from Florida Tech in May and is working for the United Space Alliance at Kennedy Space Center, is still in touch with her mentor from last year. She has met several engineers who are serving as e-mentors and finds them genuinely interested in e-mentoring.

Noting that faculty advisors often don't have time to establish close relationships with their advisees, Tomimbang said it was helpful to have "someone to talk to and listen to." She added that "I hope other students would take advantage of this opportunity."

Lists of potential mentors and mentorees are now being put together for the fall. If you would like more information, visit the e-mentoring site at www.asme.org/ementoring.

back to news & features