Mentoring

Students and post-doctoral level scientists are known to benefit from formal and informal mentoring by more experienced and established researchers. The CBU has a mentoring scheme in place for its PhD students and junior scientists (i.e. post-docs). Under this scheme, mentees are paired up with more senior mentors from outside their immediate research group. Meetings can cover anything from general careers advice to advice on writing up your thesis to help settling in at the CBU. The frequency of mentor/mentee meetings can vary as needs dictate, but have typically occurred at 6-month intervals. Generally, these meetings will take place at the mentee’s request, so mentors should try to be flexible in accommodating these requests. Feedback on the CBU mentoring scheme from both mentors and mentees has been positive, so make sure you get involved! Speak to a member of the Equality Committee for more information.

MRC guidelines that may be useful for mentees and mentors can be found here:

 Guidance for mentors

 Guidance for mentees

Some helpful slides about mentoring:

 Mentoring: Helpful slides from a mentoring session by Rita Litovsky

University Careers Service

If you are a post-doctoral scientist at the CBU you are eligible to use the University of Cambridge Careers Service. They provide a number of useful services, from sprucing up your CV, to marketing yourself effectively, to advice on completely changing careers. Check it out!