Life and learning

Valuing leadership mentoring, and diversity

As an incoming MIT student nervous about her transition to college, Jackie Beer enrolled in a freshman pre-orientation program. For a week prior to MIT’s formal orientation, she interacted with faculty, upperclass students, and classmates. The experience did more than merely help Jackie adjust to MIT; it set her on a path toward her next transition—life after the Institute.

“It made my MIT experience,” says the now senior management major of the Freshman Leadership Program (FLP)—one of a variety of freshman pre-orientation programs at MIT. “FLP provides an ideal environment for meeting a diverse group of people, exploring a little of MIT’s culture, and learning a great deal about your values. I was so excited about the program that I have been a counselor to incoming students for the last three years.”

Engaging in advising and mentoring, developing leadership skills, interacting with people of diverse backgrounds and outlooks—these experiences give undergraduates the perspective to see the connection between their academic pursuits and their future lives, and to prepare successfully for the latter.

The Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education (DUE)  is committed to sustaining and expanding programs that foster some combination of:

• advising and mentoring,

• leadership development, and

• diversity.

Such offerings include the long-standing Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and newer programs like FLP, the MIT Careers Office, and the MIT Office of Minority Education (OME).

Advising and mentoring

With advising and mentoring a priority, the Institute strives to create a network of people—faculty and others—who can help undergraduates plot a course along their MIT journey.

Along with the academic guidance they receive from their faculty advisors and UROP supervisors, students increasingly seek advice from the MIT Careers Office. In fact, visits to the office have increased 70 percent over the past five years. Services range from making informed career choices, helping with internship and job searches, offering resume advice and negotiating job offers, to pursuing study abroad opportunities, and applying to medical, law, and graduate schools.

Mentoring is often defined as guidance outside the academic sphere. MIT students seek mentorship from faculty in career planning, preparation for graduate school, and other life choices. The undergraduate Research Opportunities Program is a proven path to such interaction.

Brian Wilt, a senior studying physics, conducted research at Switzerland’s CERN laboratory as his UROP with MIT Professor Boleslaw “Bolek” Wyslouch. “Bolek has taken a role in my education that goes far beyond just a thesis advisor—he has given me invaluable advice and assistance in plotting out my life plan. Our candid conversations on research, graduate programs, and life in academia have given me direction for my future after MIT,” Wilt says.

Of course, MIT students also mentor one another. Jackie Beer’s experience as an FLP counselor illustrates the tendency of MIT students to “give back” to programs that helped them succeed in their undergraduate education.

Leadership development and diversity

As MIT Careers Office counselors point out, leadership skills can develop through a variety of experiences at MIT—student government, of course, but also participation in internships, international opportunities, living groups, student organizations, research, and peer mentorship.

Yi “Ellen” Chen, who is studying mechanical engineering, discovered her leadership potential by competing in the Maslab (Mobile Autonomous System Laboratory) robotics contest. “I was able to learn to solve not only engineering problems, but also time- and people-management problems. My team learned valuable management skills, and we were successful in integrating them to win the competition,” Chen says.

The Office of Minority Education (OME), part of the DUE, combines leadership and diversity programs. Its mission is to foster academic excellence among students of underrepresented minority groups, with the ultimate goal of developing leaders in the academy, industry, and in society.

Nicholas A. Pearce, a senior studying chemical engineering, has practiced leadership and championed diversity at MIT throughout his undergraduate career, with the support of the OME. As a junior, he sat on the Institute Committee on Student Life and on the Corporation Joint Advisory Committee on Institute-Wide Affairs (CJAC).

“For each committee, I authored a white paper and gave a presentation on MIT’s Underrepresented Minority Pipeline Initiatives—what the Institute is doing to foster diversity and possible directions for the future. This experience helped me to gain confidence in the presentation of my original ideas, to develop as a speaker, and to learn some of the political complexities of a large matrixed organization like MIT,” says Pearce.

“Life and learning” experiences such as these should be one of the distinguishing aspects of an MIT education. Financial support is required to sustain advising/mentoring, leadership, and diversity activities and to make them accessible to all students regardless of financial situation.

Giving opportunities

Endow Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming, including:

• IAP Research Mentor Program: $1 million

• Undergraduate Peer Mentorship Academy: $500,000

Endow MIT Careers Office resources and programs: $2.2 million

Endow Office of Minority Education programs, including:

• Laureates and Leaders: $1.7 million

• Mentor Advocate Partnership: $563,000

• Diversity Matters Campaign: $500,000