Today’s students are taught modern theory and the alumni may have dated theory but up to date experience What could be done to bridge this gap? To create a shortcut to experience-type knowledge for our students? And also, for the senior alumni, who have moved-out kids, time to spare and are curious as to what is going on in their old universities today. They are also starting to think about how to pass on their knowledge

They are also starting to think about how to pass on their knowledge And maybe they’re even thinking of a shift in their career and want to see what’s new in the scenes of younger people Well, we wanted to take a look at mentoring and to better understand the concept, we’ve spoken to Matti Vartiainen, a Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology here at Aalto University

Matti Vartiainen Kaisa Hölttä Professor, Work and Organizational Psychology Kaisa Hölttä Aalto Mentoring service Well, we wanted to take a look at mentoring and to better understand the concept, we’ve spoken to Matti Vartiainen, a Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology here at Aalto University And to understand how it is done in practice, we’ve spoken to Kaisa Hölttä, who is one of the people that connect mentors and mentees at the Aalto mentoring service. What the mentoring program of today does is to connect master’s students and doctoral students with Aalto alumni

What the mentoring program of today does is to connect master’s students and doctoral students with Aalto alumni It is completely separated from the Aalto study programmes To apply to the programme, mentees and mentors submit their CV’s and a description of themselves, interests, goals, etc. And are then matched in a completely manual process To give you a sense of scale of the programme: this year It matched some 140 pairs

To give you a sense of scale of the programme: this year It matched some 140 pairs Now what do you think for yourselves? Would you benefit from interaction with an experienced mentor? I’m guessing most of you think yes. But in fact today there are more people offering to mentor than there are mentees applying A huge unexploited resource The way we see it there are 3 main issues with the current programme:

The way we see it there are 3 main issues with the current programme: First a lack of clear purpose with the mentoring, a mutual context in which to talk The second concern is that due to the voluntary basis of the programme participants often neglect to give valuable feedback And from that follows that mismatches are difficult to correct and learn from Our idea is to embed a mentor-like student into a course

Our idea Our idea is to embed a mentor-like student into a course In practice, each group would have one of these students who provide practical knowledge These mentor-like students would be 40-60 year old experts from the field How would this be implemented?

An example How would this be implemented? For example, this course we are in has 14 groups is just in case 15 mentors would be needed As we went through earlier, we have many people who would like to be mentors and this resource could be utilized here Courses already use professors as mentors which has been proven to be useful for the students

Addressing the problems Courses already use professors as mentors which has been proven to be useful for the students For the mentors, we address two needs: how they want to get in touch again with their old university and the academic world and how they want to try and mentor young students We also address the three challenges we mentioned earlier with the Aalto mentoring service

Addressing the problems We also address the three challenges we mentioned earlier with the Aalto mentoring service First of all, lack of clear purpose won’t be a problems as the focus of the meetings will be the course project while in the existing mentoring service the topics for the discussion remain often times a bit ambiguous The feedback from the system could be acquired from a peer review done as the final course work. Participants would have more motivation to do it since it affects the students’ grades

The feedback from the system could be acquired from a peer review done as the final course work. Participants would have more motivation to do it since it affects the students’ grades The mismatch challenge could be addressed by adding a mingling session for forming the groups as the starting class So what is the value for the stakeholders?

Value for students So what is the value for the stakeholders? Students get the generic values of mentoring such as help for career development and life advice Unique to this idea, however, is how effective networking opportunity this is as the students gets to do a project with the experienced mentor Mentors get to reconnect with their old university and academic world

Value for mentors Reconnecting with the academic world and exposure to younger generation and their ideas can be refreshing and, thus, the course could help creating business ideas and perhaps do some career pivoting How about the value for Aalto and the society as a whole?

Value for the uni and society How about the value for Aalto and the society as a whole? Aalto is branding itself as the innovation university so a novel project inducing entrepreneurship and thus growth would fit its course portfolio perfectly This would also enhance Aalto’s alumni relations Currently, AVP courses seem like the most potential ones because of their topics and because the mentoring is currently done, only by the teacher

AVP Courses Product Development Project (PDP) Venture Ideation Global Team-based Design Innovation (ME310) The future Currently, AVP courses seem like the most potential ones because of their topics and because the mentoring is currently done, only by the teacher Here is a list of potential AVP courses we could implement this mentoring idea.