Offering: Free Mentoring Service [Academic]

[S06D]

Dear All,

My medium/ long term goal is to set up a world class, global, mentoring program which caters to anyone and everyone with a dream. I seek to revolutionize current mentoring solutions and to provide maximal value to society and individuals. I hope for this program to create the next generation of world leaders in fields ranging from politics to sports.

As a first step, I am offering my mentoring services for free and am using
this forum as a medium for (shameless ) self advertisement.
I have had some experience (~6mths) teaching and giving private math
and science lessons and hope to embark from a somewhat more academic starting point.

I believe my academic credentials are sufficiently sound. I am currently a PhD
candidate in engineering at a top engineering University and my grades
from high school to undergraduate have been significantly above average.
I am not a US citizen but my levels of spoken and written English are above acceptable. English has always been my first language, therefore communication will not be a problem.

I hope to mentor someone who is looking to significantly improve his
ability to learn. Things I will like to focus on:
- thinking about the learning process and improving meta-cognition in terms of learning
- learning how to learn (yes - about anything!)
- helping the mentee create strategies to achieve his/ her life goals
- provision of motivation/ psychological cheer-leading
- being a genuine friend

I understand that a good student may not necessarily be a good teacher. Nonetheless, I hope that if you think I will be able to be of service, please drop me a note via this forum. Questions, comments and criticism are extremely welcome.

Regards,
S06D (Dennis Wong)

[koke616]

Originally Posted by S06D

My medium/ long term goal is to set up a world class, global, mentoring program which caters to anyone and everyone with a dream. I seek to revolutionize current mentoring solutions and to provide maximal value to society and individuals. I hope for this program to create the next generation of world leaders in fields ranging from politics to sports.

I think that is totally awesome and I truly hope you succeed.

Originally Posted by S06D

I understand that a good student may not necessarily be a good teacher. Nonetheless, I hope that if you think I will be able to be of service, please drop me a note via this forum. Questions, comments and criticism are extremely welcome.

Regards,
S06D (Dennis Wong)

I am definitely interested. A mentor would be a great help to me, as there is so much I intend to learn and do. How exactly does your mentoring service work?

[Jon Tweddle]

Hi Dennis

You have a PM


Cheers
Jon

[cultivategreatness]

Dennis,

I have had this vision as well, and purchased the domain name, Welcome to PEERGUILD.COM

A global mentoring program... the site doesn't exist yet, as it has only been a concept... perhaps there is some synergy here?

Shoot me a PM if I can help in any way.

[Dannyboy1]

Or, more academic - study habits, math, etc. and not career goals?

Originally Posted by S06D

Dear All,

My medium/ long term goal is to set up a world class, global, mentoring program which caters to anyone and everyone with a dream. I seek to revolutionize current mentoring solutions and to provide maximal value to society and individuals. I hope for this program to create the next generation of world leaders in fields ranging from politics to sports.

As a first step, I am offering my mentoring services for free and am using
this forum as a medium for (shameless ) self advertisement.
I have had some experience (~6mths) teaching and giving private math
and science lessons and hope to embark from a somewhat more academic starting point.

I believe my academic credentials are sufficiently sound. I am currently a PhD
candidate in engineering at a top engineering University and my grades
from high school to undergraduate have been significantly above average.
I am not a US citizen but my levels of spoken and written English are above acceptable. English has always been my first language, therefore communication will not be a problem.

I hope to mentor someone who is looking to significantly improve his
ability to learn. Things I will like to focus on:
- thinking about the learning process and improving meta-cognition in terms of learning
- learning how to learn (yes - about anything!)
- helping the mentee create strategies to achieve his/ her life goals
- provision of motivation/ psychological cheer-leading
- being a genuine friend

I understand that a good student may not necessarily be a good teacher. Nonetheless, I hope that if you think I will be able to be of service, please drop me a note via this forum. Questions, comments and criticism are extremely welcome.

Regards,
S06D (Dennis Wong)

[S06D]

Originally Posted by koke616

I think that is totally awesome and I truly hope you succeed.

I am definitely interested. A mentor would be a great help to me, as there is so much I intend to learn and do. How exactly does your mentoring service work?

The actual plan varies from individual to individual. But here's a sketch of how things proceed:

1. First, the mentee "works". The mentee must convince me that his cause/ goal/ dream is a significant one. The definition of significant is by necessity very loose. I think this is a critical first step towards creating independence of thought. Ask what you can give to the world! I think society does operate this way.

2. The mentee comes up with a preliminary plan of attack.
2.1 We discuss it, revise it and implement it.

Since my initial attempt at mentoring is going to have a heavy academic bent, I will focus on certain strategic questions. These questions will be general as well as subject specific. The aim is to help the mentee be more aware of the learning process.

Take the subject of math for example. Beginner students may choose to memorize certain formulae. My approach would be to encourage the mentee to rely on derivation and indeed get an appreciation of the relative position of the subject matter in a global context.

The mentee can expect to be doing a lot of work.

Modes of communication:
Email
Phone
Individual meetings (clearly, this depends on location)

Expected time commitment (in terms of phone conversations, email, etc. Excludes time spent on "homework")
Initially: ~90-120min/ week
Later: ~60min/ week

Regards,
-Dennis

[koke616]

Ah, that's a bit intimidating. I don't think I'd make for a very good mentee yet. I still have to figure out exactly what I want to do with my life. I'm split between becoming either a comic book creator or a technologist/entrepreneur.

[S06D]

Originally Posted by koke616

Ah, that's a bit intimidating. I don't think I'd make for a very good mentee yet. I still have to figure out exactly what I want to do with my life. I'm split between becoming either a comic book creator or a technologist/entrepreneur.

Apologies, I did not mean to be intimidating. I wanted to be accurate - it must be an occupational hazard.

Good luck with your decision. It seems that both your choices allow you plenty of room for creative expression. That's fantastic and one the best ways to live life, in my opinion. [What I cannot create, I do not understand - Richard Feynman]. If you want, you can write out separate proposals (as I mentioned earlier in my post) for each choice and use me for feedback. Have fun!

[Andreas]

What if a mentee is not currently enrolled in an educational institution?

How do your mentoring services compare to a life coach? And how are they different?


Just getting clear here.

[S06D]

Q1: It doesn't really matter if the mentee is not in school, so to speak. However, given my current skill sets, I believe an academic (or related) environment is where I can contribute most.

I am not too familiar with life coaching so I do not think I should say too much about the 2nd question. Apologies there.
Have you (or anyone else) ever engaged a life coach? If so, please give me some more information/ details; I'd really appreciate it.

[GoalSettingCollege]

Wah, I really commend you for the selflessness. All the best in your endeavours!

[smartile]

Hi Dennis,

I love your idea and share some of your experience. I was a math and science tutor for years and love working with kids. The only problem I ran into was that my target audience were kids that just 'wanted tutoring' and I wanted to offer more (life skills, mentoring, coaching, goal achievement,etc).

Since then I've dropped the tutoring in search for kids who are looking for something more from life than just a traditional education. In the meantime I've been focused on the growth of my skills and publishing on my website.

All that being said I do have a background in NLP (I'm a Neuro Linguistics Programming Practitioner) and have a some background and understanding of learning strategies.

Drop me a line on the contact portion of my website if you think we could possibly work together.

Stephen Martile — Personal Development Made Simple

[bus9hy]

great idea So16

I would be interested in becoming a mentee myself. I am looking for a mentor to help me with one of my projects. However, I agree that your time committment is quite intimidating.

Im a great believer in spending time acting on goals rather than spending too much time talking about them.

Im sure you found many takers on this forum. Lots of people like talking about goals here!

[xeo]

I sent you a PM, S016.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by S06D

Q1: It doesn't really matter if the mentee is not in school, so to speak. However, given my current skill sets, I believe an academic (or related) environment is where I can contribute most.

I am not too familiar with life coaching so I do not think I should say too much about the 2nd question. Apologies there.
Have you (or anyone else) ever engaged a life coach? If so, please give me some more information/ details; I'd really appreciate it.

No worries.

A life coach is basically paying someone to be your friend. No not really! But they basically help you get clear on your own personal goals and how to achieve them. They are not therapists or consultants. According to the wikipedia, life coaching is a derivative of executive coaching which drew on techniques developed for management coaching and leadership training. (Hmm, I always thought leadership was a natural talent. Though I can be cultivated...)

What you're doing here seems to be a subset of Life Coaching IMHO.