Having experienced a 16-week long mentorship with the UGA Mentor Program before, I was really excited to find out that they had added a new feature to their platform called a “Quick Chat.” A Quick Chat is a 15-to-30-minute conversation with a UGA mentor about their work, life, and/or their overall career. I was looking to do something that was shorter and allowed me to meet with many mentors, so that I could learn about a variety of perspectives.
Having a Quick Chat with a mentor was beneficial and easy! The process of requesting a Quick Chat is very similar to requesting a 16-week long mentorship, the only difference being clicking “Request for Quick Chat” instead of “Request Mentor.” I would recommend tailoring your search by adding specifications about majors, job titles, industry, etc., to find a mentor that would be the most helpful to you.
As a pre-med student pursuing a Psychology major, I requested a Quick Chat with a physician who received a B.S. in Psychology for their undergraduate degree. Once I found a mentor that fit what I was looking for, I sent her a message and scheduled a meeting. I was a little worried that 30 minutes would not be enough. However, not only did I have more than enough time to ask her all of my questions I was also able to learn about her path to becoming a physician. Listening to someone who has been through this process talk about their journey allowed me to learn about different opportunities available that I never knew were options for me. This opened many doors and helped me discover programs and career paths that I had never thought or heard about before.
Quick Chats are flexible. You can meet with many mentors in a semester, while also being matched to one mentor for the 16-week time period. As soon as you release one mentor from a Quick Chat, which you can do on your homepage, you can almost immediately request another one. This way you get the opportunity to hear about different perspectives or even different career paths. Additionally, it is a great resource for a student who does not know what they want to do; they can talk to people with a variety of careers and get to know what different jobs look like to see if any of the career paths are interesting to them. Once you are done with your Quick Chat, make sure to release the mentor. To do this, go to your home page and click "Release from Mentorship/Quick Chat."
Overall, I found the Quick Chat feature of the UGA Mentor Program to be a beneficial resource that allowed me to connect with a UGA alum who had already been through the process that I am currently trying to figure out.