The Department of Statistics Mentor Scheme is a new incentive we are running to provide optional support for those who want extra guidance as they transition into the university setting.
The mentors are a select group of students who are in years 2-4 of a degree programme with the Department of Statistics. Their role is to provide you with structured and carefully designed support from Welcome week all the way through to the end of your first exams in January. The mentors will show you how to best adapt and transition to a university style of education and settle in well. They will:
Help you settle in and find your feet at the start of the course.
Guide you in best practice for engaging with the course and keeping organised and productive.
Discuss how best to prepare for university exams.
Help you reflect on how you are progressing and discuss strategies to develop further.
Listen to your issues and give general support and guidance.
Meeting Structure
There are 5 meetings with structured guidance that will be provided by the mentor. 3 of these will be in a small group of 3-4 students while 2 will be one-to-one with the mentor. The key meeting structure is as follows:
Meeting
Basic Purpose
Meet at the end of Welcome Week
Meet the group and get to know each other before the term starts
Meet on Wednesday of Week 1
The mentor will introduce you to one of the key academic support services -Stats Cafe
Meeting in Week 5
An individual meeting with the mentor to discuss engagement and how you are settling in. Also discuss best study practice to keep engaged and organised.
Meet in Week 10
Discuss how to best prepare for a uni exam and how they differ to exams you have taken before
Meet after your first exams in term 2
Debrief and reflect on preformance and set a planb for term 2 and beyond!
Further to these set meetings you can message your mentor if you have any questions (but note they are not there to answer maths questions. For this see the section on Support for your studies (in particular Stats Cafe and SMASH).
The feedback from this first iteration has been superb. The scheme gives students direct support at a time when you are experiencing something very new that has several uncertainties.
Having someone who is relatable and has gone through all the same difficulties in their first year will show you that this is part of the challenge for everyone and you can be open and discuss your issues with them.
We have mentors from all our programmes and we try to allocate you to a mentor who does the same degree programme as you so that they really know almost everything about the challenges that you will be facing.
Sadly we have a limited capacity for allocating mentors as this is a new scheme and the aim is for us to increasing the capacity each year (we currently can mentor ~160 students in 24/25).
Therefore we run a first-come-first-served approach to allocation. To reduce the chance of being dissapointed please apply for a mentor early here:
