I enjoy mentoring others on their career paths. Over the years, my views on mentorship have evolved. When I was in college, I believed a mentor was someone who was much older than me and was successful in their career. I could push all my issues to this super mentor with infinite knowledge. During the last 10 years, I've lived in Minneapolis, Boston, and Miami. At each stop, I have gained a mentor and been a mentor to someone else. And what I have learned is that there is no universal mentor for me. I get mentorship from many people and they help me in different ways.

Mentorship is not exclusive. While this sounds obvious, very few first-gen students I've mentored actually conceptualize mentorship this way. They typically rely on a primary mentor or strive to find one. The literature suggests an alternative approach. One research stream, beginning with Kram (1988) and further expanded by Dr. Monica Higgins (my doctoral advisor at Harvard), looks at mentorship as a network of "developers". These "developers" can individually or jointly support the mentee.

In a career context, this means that one's personal network can influence their ability to access and activate mentoring relationships. Cultivating this network of developers is critical. And it's not the same thing as networking or getting informational interviews. Cultivating a network of developers begins with a thorough audit of one's existing assets and gaps across personal and professional spheres.

Since the pandemic, I have had 1:1 conversations with over 100 students. I have observed that reframing mentorship as a "developmental network" helps them better set expectations and define the nature of their interaction. The lesson here boils down to 2 things: 1) there is no super mentor so don't expect it and 2) cultivate weak ties.