SAMIR: There’s so many people around campus who are willing to be mentors and want to help students. They often are in the positions where they interface with students a lot because, surprise, surprise, they like talking to students, and they like helping students. Right.
One of my biggest mentors was Scott Alessandro who is the undergraduate administrator at Sloan. And I am in no way related to Sloan whatsoever, but that doesn’t stop him from meeting with me every other month whenever I have a problem. Because that’s just the kind of person he is.
Another one of my main mentors is Professor Anne McCants, who is a history professor, but she was also the head of house at Burton Conner while I was living at Burton Conner. And she was always open to talking to every single one of her students. And I had tea in her apartment a couple of mornings, every semester. And she’s always been there for me whenever I had any questions or just want to meet up.
And even Professor Julie Shaw. She was the first professor who I UROP’d under. And she was not my undergrad advisor and she was not my graduate advisor, but she still met with me whenever I had a question about academia, or about work, or about life. And I think the point is that there are people everywhere who are great mentors and want to be mentors. And you just have to look and you have to ask because they really do want to help.