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Mentor Talking Points

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What Mentors might want to talk about during the morning meeting:

Mentors will meet with their students at numbered tables in Metcalf Hall. Mentors should report to Metcalf Hall by 8:45 to greet students who arrive. The mentor should talk inofrmally with the students abut questions to submit to the career panel and come up with 2-3 interesting questions. Just before the "What's My Line' Career panel begins, mentors should distribute sheets on which students will attempt to correctly match mentors to their fun facts. Mentors should collect these sheets before the panel begins. (Correct responses will be entered into a raffle.) The Career Panel will begin at 9:00 and end at 9:45. Once the panel concluded, mentors will have from 9:45 - 10:00 AM. for the morning meeting. During the morning meeting, each mentor should let her students know how they can get the most out of the day. Since they will be from different schools, you might want to begin by having the students introduce themselves and say a little about their interest in science. Primarily, the students should be encouraged to be very active participants and not to be shy! Examples of what you might tell them include:

• The scientists and engineers giving posters or lab tours are here to talk with YOU; they'd love to answer any questions you have about their research -- or about careers as well.
  
  
• If a poster looks really complicated, don't be intimidated; just ask the presenter to tell you the main points -- what is she studying? why? any applications to the real world? The idea is for you to talk to the presenter and learn from her directly; the poster is there so some of the pictures or charts can be part of your discussion; it also gives an idea of how material is presented at professional conferences
  
  
• Please DO try out the demo equipment in the poster/demo session; it's all been brought for you to experiment with
  
  
• The women at the career tables have come to their present jobs from a surprising variety of backgrounds; ask them about what they studied, how their technical training prepared them for what they do now, how many different fields each has worked in, what they do in a typical day, how much people in their field make.
  
  
• If you see a cool piece of equipment in a lab, ask what it's for and how it's used in the research! Many lab tours will have some equipment (microscopes, computers) specially set up for you to try.
  
  
• The lab tour escorts are BU students; most are science or engineering majors; they can answer questions you have about college life.
  
  
  

What mentors might talk about with the students at lunch:

Mentors will meet back with their students for lunch at 12:40 PM. They should return to the same numbered table where they met with their students in the morning. Some of the topics you might want to discuss at lunch include:

• What part of the day did the students like best ? What was the most interesting thing they heard in a talk or poster ? Tried out in a lab or demo ?
  
  
• If the mentor has looked at some of the poster/demo session, she can ask "Hey, did anyone else see this interesting poster about ----------" ? or "How did this demo work when you tried it" ?
  
  
• Ask if anyone learned about a new technical field they didn't know about before ? A different career ?
  
  
• What kinds of science courses have they had? Are they thinking of majoring in science/engineering in college? What careers are they thinking about?
  
  
• Tell them about what you do, what you studied in college, etc.
  
  
• Talk with them about some science/engineering/medical topic you saw in the newspaper lately.
  
  
• Make sure they fill out the evaluation forms on the table so we know how different sessions worked.

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