Dance Mentor/Mentee Program
Through the dance program, I served as a dance mentor to an incoming freshman. Every year within the dance department, upperclassmen can agree to be assigned a mentee that they will help guide and meet up with a few times throughout the year to help them get antiquated with the MSU dance department and the university in general. As mentors and mentee, we made sure to get together a few times during the year to discuss upcoming events within the program and to answer any questions that our mentee, Mio, might have. I have briefly written journals about each of the times we met up and what we talked about during that particular meeting. I realized that as a mentor I wanted to exhibit my leadership values and develop my mentor philosophy. I wanted to create an open environment where any question could be asked, honestly answered and input could be provided by both of us. My mentee mirrored these values in communicating with me when we would meet up. Through this experience, I realized that I was at level two on the values portion of the leadership competency. I realized my strength as a mentor was that I cared deeply about wanting to assist my mentee Mio and I was responsible in communicating and setting up all of the meetings we had. One of my weaknesses was that I wouldn't always know the best way to smoothly communicate any questions or make her feel more at ease overall in starting her new experiences at MSU. I hope in future mentorship opportunities to improve upon this. In reflecting on my values as a mentor, I believe my role as a mentor could be improved by developing a more relaxed quality when meeting in a group setting involving mentors and mentees. I realized how I wished that we had connected more in order to figure out what roles we would play and be able to contribute to our meetings to make them more productive and satisfying. This experience of serving as a mentor within my program of study allowed me to continue to reflect on my personal leadership strengths and weaknesses and the roles that are demonstrated in group settings, specifically in mentorship programs.
Dance Mentor/Mentee Reflection
