Alexandra and Qian
Mentor
Alexandra was born and raised in Manhattan and grew up in the NYC public schools. She studied Communicationand Psychology at the University of Miami before returning to New York City where she currently lives. She wasextremely shy growing up and has been able to draw upon her very different, yet parallel experiences to share withand provide support and encouragement to Qian. Unlike Qian, she is an only child, but like Qian, she had to take ontremendous responsibility in caring for her family at an early age when her mother got sick while she was in high school. She has never mentored before but was motivated by her gratitude for the “unofficial mentors” she has hadin her life that have served as such solid role models. “My unofficial mentors helped me with so many things ingetting me to where I am now – they helped me get my job, think ahead about my career path, and deal with themove from NYC to Miami for school…”
Mentee
Qian is a senior at the International High School at Prospect Heights and lives in the Sunset Park neighborhood ofBrooklyn. She moved to the United States from China over 3 years ago and works at a Chinese restaurant to helpsupport her family. She also has a lot of responsibility caring for her younger sister. She has aspirations movingbeyond working at the Chinese restaurant but has been consistently discouraged and told that she doesn’t have theskills to do so. Before being matched, Qian described herself as lacking confidence. She said that many people toldher she was “thin-skinned” and shy but she didn’t think this was the case. She just felt that she hadn’t learned how tocommunicate with people and had fear about being made fun of for her English-speaking ability. She was eager toimprove and requested a mentor who was outgoing and hard-working.
About Their Match
Qian’s biggest hurdle has been trying to overcome the fear of being mocked when she speaks. Alexandra identified her role as one in which she could help and practice gain the courage to speak through constant encouragement and practice.
Why iMentor Works for Them
The iMentor combination of weekly emails and in-person meetings were crucial for the development of this pair's relationship. The consistent weekly emails allowed Qian to practice her written English and expression while steadily expanding her level of trust in and comfort with Alexandra. “The personal connection is so important,” says Alexandra, “the personal connection allows me to offer advice and to help. If we didn’t have that, she wouldn’t want to listen. I would just be any other person telling her what to do. The emails themselves have become more personal. We share a lot of similar experiences – her being shy about her English is about her fear of making a mistake and though I didn’t have a language barrier growing up, I was so shy in Middle School because of my fear of being wrong. It’s also really important to SEE [Qian] in person and to interact – being able to trust someone requires that you have contact with them so this most recent event on Networking Skills was so big for us.”
Impact of Their Match
At Qian’s school, iMentor is integrated into the Senior Internship Program. After a semester of working with her mentor on resumes, cover letters, interviewing skills, and more, she was placed at an internship at the corporate office of Sushi Samba. Here, Qian has had the opportunity to put into practice the skills gained through the program as well as the confidence attained by her constant weekly support and encouragement from Alexandra. Qian told Alexandra that she was intimidated by an outspoken college student who is also doing an internship at the Sushi Samba office. Alexandra suggested that rather than think less of herself when encountering someone with skills that she would like to improve, she can look at people as models and learn from them. Qian then showed a drastic increase in confidence demonstrated at the Networking event when she and Alexandra had a chance to practice meeting and introducing themselves to pairs from another iMentor school. Qian spoke with ease and confidence to mentors from other schools as she and Alexandra made rounds to converse with other pairs attending the event. Now that Alexandra’s office has moved closer to the city, she and Qian have been able to make immediate plans to meet several more times at out-of-program events on their own. Learning about Qian’s progress, Alexandra explained that there was huge satisfaction in knowing that the development of their one-on-one relationship could have such a great impact on her mentee. “I get so much satisfaction in seeing her reach her goals. It’s hard, you always expect to have a mentee who will be less enthusiastic (I was the same way in high school – I wouldn’t have been interested at first), but over the course of the program, Qian has really opened up. iMentor is great – it’s hard to commit time at this point in life but there’s so many options available and there’s a structure but also a necessary freedom to make the mentee-mentor relationship more personal.”
