I just got an email sent to me by a current freshman at the University of Iowa. 🙂

Here is a quote with her concern.

“Hey Kyra!

 I stumbled upon your blog and I read about how happy you
were with your advisor, and couldn’t help thinking about mine. She’s nice
enough, and gives me helpful info when I ask, but I feel like we don’t really
connect much. So what should I do? I’d love to hear what you think!

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Current U of I Freshman”

Okay, well girl… HIGH FIVE for seeking out mentor-ship/guidance. I have to commend you for taking things a step forward and asking questions! As for your answer; I think you’ve come to the right place! Haha

Well, if your advisor is nice,  effectively helps you understand your career path options, and class registration I think that you should definitely continue working with her. Although your academic advisor is one of your first options for a mentor, he/she is not the only one. I think you should seek out someone on campus  (staff or faculty) that is successful  in an area you may have interest in or someone is just an all around cool person doing cool things! After you figure out who you would like to be your mentor you can send them an email sharing with them why you’d like for them to be your mentor and request that you guys could meet up every couple of weeks to just check in with each other. Or you can just build the relationship with out officially putting on the title.

What do you do with your mentor??

Well, you share an interest in what projects, research, & events they may be a part of. Hear their story and how they got to where they are now. Ask them for advice and let them know what is going on from a student prospective.

It seems like a kind of odd thing to do, and I know this tactic isn’t for everyone, however, I know I’ve learned a lot from my mentors and it is really cool to know I have a faculty level of support at the University. This helps out tremendously in many different ways.

As for your advisor, why don’t you try stopping in sometime during her walk in hours  and maybe seek her advice on a different area of your college experience other than classes, you may be surprised to see where this leads and this will allow her the opportunity to get to know you with out such a strict agenda such as registering you for next semester in an hour or less.

I know that was a lot to take in, but I hope it helped!

If you have any follow up questions please feel free to comment below or shoot me another email! 🙂