Leadership Development, Mentorship Summary

This year I had the privilege of mentoring Pratik Banala. Pratik came all the way from New Jersey to attend Ohio State and while he is undecided in his major, after a year of college has discovered that he would like to do something with business. Similar to me, Pratik loves trying new things and making new friends. He is a very outgoing person and enjoys building relationships with others. While Pratik may be a little more comfortable with going with the flow than I am we still got along wonderfully all year.

Starting the year off Pratik was very excited to be in a new environment with so many opportunities and people to meet. Watching Pratik from semester to semester I got to see him develop a great friend group and learn more about himself. As mentioned earlier, Pratik is still undecided about his major, but after a statistics course he discovered his passion for business and statistics. This narrowing down of interests is helping him move forward to find a perfect fit career path. Personally I think Pratik will thrive in business as he is very friendly and great at communicating with others. As the year progressed Pratik also got in the groove of studying for college classes and larger class sizes. Study groups and trips to the library helped his grades excel and made classes feel more manageable.

As a mentor, I feel that I learned many leadership skills. I wanted to be a good source of advice and information for Pratik in whatever way he needed it. This helped me practice listening to others’ needs and problem solving in how to help. I also learned how to be more organized in planning events such as “Explore Columbus” trips and interviews to check in with Pratik. I really enjoyed being a source of information and help as well as making sure I was approachable for any problems or questions. In addition, I learned that as a mentor I could still learn things from my mentee. Pratik would tell me about clubs he was looking at joining or volunteer events he took part in that I hadn’t heard of. It was really cool to hear about the ways Pratik was getting involved and learn about organizations I had never heard of before.

I helped my mentee in areas of mentoring by being an approachable source for questions and giving recommendations of ways to get involved based on Pratik’s interests. In terms of socialization I helped motivate Pratik to attend ACES events and other events such as Buckeyethon to meet and interact with others. As for orientation, for Pratik’s first year at OSU I feel that I introduced him to good study habits, study spots and tips on how to make campus feel small seeing that he didn’t know anyone coming to campus. This was done through a lot of encouragement to get involved and to form study groups for hard classes that are large in size. I think with these tips and advice and just conversation in general I was able to help Pratik have a more enjoyable first year.

I think the mentoring program is a great opportunity for first and second year students. Coming to college can be extremely difficult and intimidating and it is nice to have someone who has some experience under their belt to help walk with you through it. One of the best parts of the mentoring experience is learning from one another. Building relationships with other students can open a whole world of new ideas and opportunities unknown otherwise. While I was able to coach Pratik through some aspects of OSU he was able to inform me about some other organizations and events I never would have known on otherwise. I really enjoyed the Explore Columbus aspect of this mentorship program because it was a great opportunity to see beyond campus what Columbus has to offer. For our scholars group, I think this mentorship program was excellent because it helped build relationships throughout the group that may not have been formed otherwise. I personally did not do the mentorship program as a freshman, and after being a mentor myself I wish I had done it. OSU is a large campus and the more people that interact, the smaller it feels. I am excited to keep in touch with Pratik in the future and see where his studies take him for a career and where college takes him as a person in his involvement.