Alumni mentoring: An approach to build community of learners

Department of Computing and Centre for Postgraduate Studies Middle East College, Sultanate of Oman

preethy@mec.edu.om
smitha@mec.edu.om

Abstract

Mentors play a vital role in students' academic journey by providing guidance and encouragement to achieve ambitions and educational goals in future. What if the mentor is an alumnus? In this article, a case study of alumni mentoring in Postgraduate Studies at Middle East College, Sultanate of Oman is presented and proposes an alumnus mentoring framework with three major phases for a systematic implementation across the institution. The practice was implemented in a phased approach, starting with 1^st semester modules, and further extended to higher semester modules based on student feedback. The survey conducted to review the effectiveness of alumni mentoring sessions confirms that the alumni mentoring practice contributes significantly to shaping students' journey to academic success and supports in creating a community of learners.