PERCEPTION AND IMPORTANCE OF MENTOR-MENTEE PROGRAMME IN INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (IIT, JODHPUR) TO FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING STUDENT

Background: Mentoring is a crucial step for career success and there is lot of stress of different engineering courses in the new environment along with emotional immaturity and new challenges. A well-designed and structured mentoring programme for the budding engineers has been introduced at IIT. A specialized institutional support is required for an IIT student to facilitate success. To facilitate this high level of success for every student, the approach should be active and antecedent. Mentoring has always been an important part in an engineering students' career. Material and methods: A mentorship programme were designed for engineering students (n-120) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur. Two-day workshop was conducted to sensitize senior students of third semester (n-15) who volunteered to be dedicated mentors. After sensitization, 120 B.Tech first semester students were divided among these mentors by a lottery system. At the end of the mentorship programme, perception of mentors and mentees was done by content analysis of all the data collected by open ended and close ended questionnaire. Results: A total of 120 students and 15 mentors completed the feedback questionnaire. Mentors themselves consider this programme helpful in their self-improvement as role models, advisors or career counselors and in improving their communication skills and mentees were of the view that the programme helped them emotionally and academically. Conclusion: Mentor-mentee programme in IIT enhanced the engineering students professional and personal development and both mentors and mentees were extremely satisfied with this programme for career development.