What an amazing opportunity I have got!
I have been selected to the most-awaited ScholarX 2021 program as a mentee. As a person who wants to achieve a lot in future, I certainly need a mentor to guide me in the correct path. First, I will provide information about what the ScholarX program is. It is a 6-month program funded by Sustainable Education Foundation (SEF) for Sri Lankan undergraduates who would like to receive academic mentorship. The mentorship program is very effective because of one-to-one communication.
I got to know about this valuable mentorship program from my peers. They shared their experience in ScholarX program in their blog posts and I read those interesting blog posts. Then I searched about the program in Google. Unfortunately, the deadline for the registration was closed. Afterwards, I waited eagerly for the next year’s program to start.
Finally, the mentorship program for 2021 was announced in February 2021. The mentor details were given in the web page of the ScholarX program. I flipped through it to find mentors related to my academics and interest. I selected 3 mentors as my preference, and I applied for the program. The selected students listed was published on April 2021, I got anxious until I looked into the following from the selected student list.
Yes, that is my name and my assigned mentor name. I am very happy after seeing it. I am a fourth-year biomedical engineering undergraduate at University of Moratuwa. I am very fortunate because my mentor is an outstanding alumnus of my department.
Let me introduce my mentor. My mentor is Mohamed Athif. He is a biomedical engineering PhD candidate at Boston University, USA. He published some thought-provoking research papers in his undergraduate study.
The first official meeting of the ScholarX program with the organization team was held in May 2021. The former years’ mentees of the program Kithmin Wickramasinghe and Kithmini Herath shared their experience in the meeting. Those were very inspiring and valuable for me for the next 6 months of the ScholarX program 2021. The first kick-off meeting with the mentor was conducted and we introduced ourselves to each other. I shared my future goals, what I am looking from this mentorship and how we want to set up the following meetings. The meeting with my mentor was scheduled once every other week. Up to now, I completed three meetings with my mentor successfully. We discussed career planning and opportunities, research projects progress, the final year project and higher studies. He was very friendly, enthusiastic and approachable when I reached out him. He is keen to share his journey and experience throughout academics to enhance my skills. Since I am a reserved type of person, the mentorship program improved my communication skills.
I am very happy to say I have an active and outstanding mentor who I can call for advice and help anytime. I realized that I am lucky to get hold of this great opportunity. On the whole, I conclude this article with a well said quote.
“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction “
- by John C.Crosby
Thank you for reading.
