The Mentorship Program has been a long-standing tradition in the UW Actuarial Club. Every year, club members are given the opportunity to serve as either a mentor, sharing guidance and experiences with new students, or a mentee, benefitting from the experiences of those who have taken the path before them. On October 9th, we held our annual Mentorship Kickoff event, where over 120 mentors and mentees came together to meet one another, ask questions, and start forming connections.
This year, the Actuarial Club is eager to offer an innovative approach to pairing mentors and mentees. Rather than having individual mentor-mentee pairs, the program has introduced “mentorship families.” In general, these families consist of four students, one from each undergraduate class, and pair members based on their hobbies and interests.
The goal behind mentorship families is simple. As a club, we recognize that everyone’s experiences, whether a first-year, sophomore, junior, senior, or capstone student, are unique and valuable. By introducing membership families, club members can gain the perspective of a student at each of these levels, rather than being limited to the perspective of their individual mentor or mentee.
While the Actuarial Club is proud to provide these mentorship family groupings, this is largely a member-run program. Although the Actuarial club hosts several events each semester for mentorship families to come together, such as our Mentorship Trivia Social at the Sett on November 5, the success of the Mentorship Program is rooted in outside participation. So far, engagement has been outstanding; many families have met to get coffee, study together, and share their experiences both within and outside of the Actuarial Program.
It seems that the introduction of mentorship families has had a positive influence on the Mentorship Program. The Actuarial Club is eager to see how club members benefit from the connections they’ve formed as the year continues.
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