Mentoring

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VIGRE Mentoring

An important part of the VIGRE program is mentoring for all VIGRE trainees--undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Postdoctoral Fellows are assigned a faculty mentor soon after the beginning of their first semester at Carnegie Mellon. Each postdoc is also involved in a significant research group, and the faculty group leader often acts as a second mentor. The postdoctoral fellows also meet approximately twice a semester for "mentoring meetings", which are informal discussions of topics of interest. Recent topics include:
- Time Management
- Tenure Process
- Referee Reports and Publishing Advice
- ENAR New Researchers' Workshop
- Preparing and Updating Your CV
- Discussion of Current Teaching Issues
- Summer Plans and Activities: How to Keep Moving and Have a Successful Summer
- Writing Papers, Grants and Talks
Graduate Students are assigned a faculty advisor/mentor when they arrive for new student orientation. As they move through the program, their faculty advisors for Advanced Data Analysis and for thesis work become their primary mentors. In addition the Department Head holds occasional meetings with grad students as a group, and once every other year we offer a graduate seminar that serves as a group mentoring vehicle for graduate students. Recent topics include:
- Using TeXPoint with PowerPoint
- Writing a CV
- Writing a Referee Report
- Reading and Responding to Referee Reports
- Writing Letters of Recommendation
- Writing Papers, Grants and Talks
Undergraduates are usually engaged in specific research projects in one or more research groups in the department, or as undergrad teaching assistants. The faculty project supervisor or class instructor also acts as a mentor for the undergraduate.
All members of the department are also welcome to attend the Teaching and Research Teas that occur occasionally each semester.

We find the combination of group- and individual-mentoring to be very powerful. Individual mentoring is good for topics that require some confidentiality. Group mentoring allows us to cover the same ground (the same general advice) with many trainees simultaneously.

As trianees become comfortable with the Department, they often seek out additional or alternative mentoring, in the form of a different faculty member (e.g. for teaching vs research issues), as well as peers (other postdocs, other grad students, etc.) who have been in the department a year or two longer.