Throughout this mentoring class, I have begun to think more about what it really means to be a mentor. I essentially underestimated the role of a mentor in someone’s life. Mentoring is not just someone with a title, a mentor is someone who guides, and teaches their mentee the ropes while giving them their own freedom to make decisions. A mentor understands their role and doesn’t overstep boundaries but challenges the mentee to be better in every aspect. A mentor must build a bond based on trust and confidence with their mentee in order to truly help them.
Mentoring is not an easy job and also requires one to make hard decisions every once in a while. Having a strong bond with your mentee means that one should be able to speak the truth with them although that truth may hurt one or both of the people. As a mentor,
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I am getting to know people unlike myself and seeing how different everybody really is. I thought that because the majority of the class was black and from the same city meant that they all came from the same background which is not true. I am slowly finding out that these stereotypes that have been instilled in my head about my own race have caused me to prejudge people without knowing them first. Now that I have put those out of my head and tried to form relationships with those who I assumed were nothing like me, I am starting to find that there are similarities and that these preconceived ideas that the media puts in our heads are preventing us from becoming mature adults that are able to be in situations that are very diverse in nature and be able to communicate effectively. In order to be an effective mentor, one has to engage their mentee fully into the process of maturation. It is essential to have that ability to talk to anyone without feeling uncomfortable of out of place which I feel that I can do very well because I see everyone as my equal and treat them as