Mentoring in the School of Mines and Energy to Cover Student Needs: From the Newly Enrolled to the Near-Graduates

Abstract

University students face situations throughout their careers that are sometimes difficult to overcome due to their lack of experience or preparation. Mentoring programs in university education have been proven to be a great accompaniment tool to solve these difficulties in addition to helping students’ personal and professional development. Our study aimed to show the complete mentoring process that accompanies students in the most crucial stages of their university education at the School of Mines and Energy of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Three stages of interest were identified in which mentoring projects have been implemented through training activities at the Unit of Social Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Values in Engineering (UESEVI). At the beginning of their studies, two welcome actions are offered: Mentor and Monitor projects that provide administrative and academic support; during the development of their studies, the Mentoring with Energy project offers professional tutoring that helps students in their incorporation into the labor market and provides them with tools to select a specialty; and in the last stage, professional accompaniment is provided by the Gray Angels project that helps students to develop their future careers. The activities of UESEVI are a strategy in our School to guarantee the development of soft skills and compliance with quality education processes. The usefulness of these programs can be measured through the participation and interest of the students. A positive evolution of these projects has been observed over the years. They have been growing according to the demand and needs detected in the successive evaluations of the programs.