1. Implications of understanding mentee’s expectations: “I don’t belong”
Recognize and try to understand how similar your love and study of mathematics is;
AND that mathematics is not always easy for you either.
if you can build on that, do!

2. Implications of being a role model for a possible self: you can’t/won’t help me
You have a history that positions you roughly where they are; now have lots of “tacit knowledge”—make it explicit
Offer up examples of what it’s like to reach the next stages in an undergraduate math career
seek information about obstacles mentee may have experienced and
offer ideas about how to overcome them
You have knowledge about majoring in mathematics, and pursuing graduate education that you can pass on (role models as mentors…)
Offer information/demystify next stages
jobs?
graduate education?

3. Finding deep-level similarity
John Hersey,
author of Hiroshima
“Considering how little we had in common…—I’m not sure why he took to me the way he did. Maybe he saw a bond between the shy scholarship student he had been at Yale…and “the daughter of innkeepers in the Adirondacks who too often keeps her light hidden beneath a bushel.” (Pollack, p. 112)