Kick-off for NHH’s popular mentorship program
The master students recently had their very first meeting with their mentors, who are ready to share their experiences and help the students find their way into the workforce.
Torbjørn Sandmo, an economist at the Norwegian Competition Authority, says that the conversations he had with his mentor when he was a master’s student a few years ago set him on the path to making more secure and conscious choices, in line with his values.
The invitation to participate as a mentor in the master’s degree is part of the alumni activities at NHH.
A reunion at the kick-off
Arne-Christian Haukeland was Torbjørn Sandmo’s mentor and is one of the veterans of the program. He has participated all six times. A new mentor is John Kristian Ellertsen, who also remembers good conversations with Arne-Christian Haukeland when he participated as a mentee. He also highlights how the mentorship program made him more open to the different paths his career could take.
"Don’t plan everything. Take things as they come and be open,” is his summary of what a good mentorship program can offer a mentee who is nearing the end of a master’s degree.
Haukeland himself summarizes “Arne-Christian’s method” as creating aha-moments for the mentee and challenging the things that are taken for granted.
“Also remember to see things in a slightly longer perspective. Not all career goals has to be achieved within the first two years,” he says.
The kick-off for the mentorship program was thus a pleasant reunion for the experienced mentor and the two former mentees. The three agree that it is also educational to be a mentor. You learn personnel management and it keeps you updated on how the new generations view working life and what they want.
Developing Leadership Skills
One of this year’s mentor pairs is Monalisa Magoche (mentee) and Anna Chekalyuk (mentor). Magoche is one of the international students at NHH, while Chekalyuk graduated from the master’s program last year.
Magoche emphasizes that she wants to use the mentorship program to build her leadership and communication skills together with her mentor. She believes this form of one-on-one learning and development with an experienced mentor is a type of educational development that can never be bought or obtained in any other way.
“It is also inspiring to see a woman in the role of a mentor,” she says.
Chekalyuk says that by participating as a mentor, she gets a great opportunity to give something back to the school where she completed her education just a year ago. The only thing she regrets is that she didn’t know about the mentor program when she was a student herself.