Mentor Program Overview

Step 1: Register
Step 2: Wait
Step 3: E-mail your Student
Process for Students

Thank you for your interest in the CEEAA's Mentor Program. All University of Illinois Civil and Environmental Engineering alumni are welcome to participate. This program is totally automated, complete with online sign-up forms and a searchable database. The Department encourages you to give back and be a mentor to a current CEE student. Browse the web site and consider being a mentor; we believe that both you and your student will benefit greatly from this experience.

Information security is an issue these days, but please know that we have taken precautionary measures, including information encryption, to keep the information you give us as secure as possible.

Here's how you can register to be a mentor:

Step 1: Give us some information

- To sign up to be a mentor, please click the button below and follow the instructions. This information will go into a database which students will search to match their interests and needs with a particular engineer's profile. Not all fields are mandatory, however, the more information you are willing to give students the better they can determine which mentor would be best for them.

Please use the text boxes on the form as opportunities to share with students your professional strengths and expertise which are totally unique to you--such as grant writing, working closely with government agencies, started your own business from the ground up, etc.

Note

: The contact information (address, phone, and e-mail address) will not be seen by students searching the database. Only your e-mail address will be shared with the student after you agree to be their mentor.

return to top

Step 2: Wait...

Wait until you get a confirmation e-mail from the mentorprogram stating that you have been requested by a student. Note:that students will be learning about this program in the fall and will not have a time limit on when they can sign up so this part of the process may take awhile. After you receive an e-mail from the mentor program coordinator requesting you to be a mentor, please reply back if you are still interested in participating in the program. Since workloads and life circumstances fluctuate, this will be your opportunity to evaluate once again if you are still available to be a mentor. Upon deciding to continue to participate in the mentoring program, please send a reply e-mail to Carla Blue at mentor@cee.uiuc.edu. Lastly, you will be forwarded the student's e-mail address so that you may initiate the first contact.

return to top

Step 3: E-mail your student

Please take the initiative and make the first contact with your student.

Obviously we would like for you and your student to keep in contact as much as possible, but the at the very least we ask that you and your student talk or e-mail at least 3 times per semester. You may conduct all of your communication by e-mail if you wish, or any other way that you and your student agree upon. You will have the same student for fall and spring semesters.

return to top

Here's how the process will work for students:

As students come back this fall, they will be introduced to the new and improved online mentor program. They will visit the web site and search the mentor database and hopefully they will find a mentor who is a good match for their interests and career goals. Once they choose a mentor, an e-mail will notify the coordinator and she will notify the mentor by e-mail that he/she has been chosen. (Note that no contact information has been shared. This will be done in the final step.) The chosen mentor will have the opportunity at this time to accept or decline a student (you will not know who your student is). If your schedule suddenly does not allow you to participate, you may e-mail the coordinator indicating this and the student will be asked to chose another mentor. If you accept (by e-mail), your student's contact information will be e-mail to you and you will need to initiate the first contact with your student within one week.

But...before students can sign up, we need some great alumni to be willing to sign up to be a mentor...

return to top