Clare
I started mentoring last summer with Blueprint for All and inevitably got the mentoring bug, so signed up for Arts Emergency mentoring for 2021 as well. My BFA mentee is a Part 1 architecture graduate, whereas my AE mentee is currently studying AS levels. As you would expect, the conversations I have with them vary hugely which is proving to be a good challenge for me. The AE programme started in January and I meet my mentee once a month for an hour. At the moment this is virtual, however, fingers crossed we can start to visit galleries, museums and other inspirational spaces later in the year! Since July, I have been meeting my first mentee approximately every 2 weeks, on MS teams for 45mins-1.5 hours (depending on what interesting things have been happening). We did speak about reducing this, but both felt the mutual support during Covid-19 was really helpful. We have covered CV/portfolio reviews, interview techniques, the masters course, part 3 content, design ideas/passion projects and shared notes on how to stay sane during a pandemic, just to name a few!