Skip to main content

Resources for Mentees

Researcher and student working in science lab

Mentoring Up Workshops

Mentoring Up workshops are designed to support graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in understanding their roles in collaborating with mentors to build effective mentoring relationships. These workshops are based on a curriculum developed by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) and are led by faculty and staff facilitators who have been trained by CIMER. 

Mentoring Up workshops are currently offered by request. Colleges, departments, and graduate student and postdoc organizations are invited to request workshops on any of the following topics. 

  • Foundations of Mentoring Up
  • Aligning Expectations
  • Maintaining Effective Communication
  • Fostering Independence
  • Assessing Understanding
  • Promoting Professional Development
  • Articulating your Mentoring Philosophy and Plan
  • Mentoring for All
  • Fostering Wellbeing

Request a Mentoring Up workshop

Individual Development Plan (IDP)

An important part of mentorship and overall professional development is the creation of a personalized strategic plan to realize scholarship-related, career-related and/or professional development objectives. 

Why is an IDP important?

  • An IDP is a visual representation and reminder of how you will spend your time achieving your goals. Think of it as a roadmap – if you were driving somewhere new and didn’t have a map and were just trying to figure out how to get there by gut instinct, it would be very challenging. Having a map with mile markers would make navigation much easier. An IDP functions in a similar way, providing guidance to navigate one's academic and professional journey.
  • An IDP establishes milestones along the way, which can be acknowledged and celebrated with your mentor and colleagues.
  • An IPD serves as a communication tool between you, your mentor and others across campus and within your research field.

Tools to develop an IDP

3 grad students speaking with one of their advisors

Peer Mentoring Consultations and Toolkits

We can help your department or program design and set up a graduate student peer mentoring program. We can provide you with the following resources:

  • Mentor and mentee interest surveys to support the match process
  • Peer mentoring program orientation for mentors and mentees to set expectations and share best practices for mentoring

All mentor-mentee pairings and monitoring would take place within your department or program.

Mentoring Consultations

Would you like to schedule a one-on-one meeting with our mentoring team?  

Still Have Questions?

Contact the Mentoring and Strategic Initiatives Team

mentoring@osu.edu