
Different students will require different amounts and kinds of attention, advice, information, and encouragement. Mentoring styles and activities are as varied as human relationships. In the end, they establish an environment in which the student's accomplishment is limited only by the extent of his or her talent. They make an effort to know, accept, and respect the goals and interests of a student. They are good listeners, good observers, and good problem-solvers. Good mentors are able to share life experiences and wisdom, as well as technical expertise. In general, an effective mentoring relationship is characterized by mutual respect, trust, understanding, and empathy. The Council of Graduate Schools (1995) cites Morris Zelditch's useful summary of a mentor's multiple roles: "Mentors are advisors, people with career experience willing to share their knowledge supporters, people who give emotional and moral encouragement tutors, people who give specific feedback on one's performance masters, in the sense of employers to whom one is apprenticed sponsors, sources of information about and aid in obtaining opportunities models, of identity, of the kind of person one should be to be an academic." These obligations can extend well beyond formal schooling and continue into or through the student's career.

In the realm of science and engineering, we might say that a good mentor seeks to help a student optimize an educational experience, to assist the student's socialization into a disciplinary culture, and to help the student find suitable employment. They might have to find their mentor elsewhere-perhaps a fellow student, another faculty member, a wise friend, or another person with experience who offers continuing guidance and support. Some students, particularly those working in large laboratories and institutions, find it difficult to develop a close relationship with their faculty adviser or laboratory director.

In the broad sense intended here, a mentor is someone who takes a special interest in helping another person de. A mentor will try to be aware of these changes and vary the degree and type of attention, help, advice, information, and encouragement that he or she provides. A mentoring relationship develops over an extended period, during which a student's needs and the nature of the relationship tend to change.

An adviser might or might not be a mentor, depending on the quality of the relationship.
POINT BLANK MENTOR PROFESSIONAL
A fundamental difference between mentoring and advising is more than advising mentoring is a personal, as well as, professional relationship. In academics, mentor is often used synonymously with faculty adviser. In modern times, the concept of mentoring has found application in virtually every forum of learning. Athena, in the guise of Mentor, became the guardian and teacher of Odysseus' son Telemachus. The original Mentor was described by Homer as the "wise and trusted counselor" whom Odysseus left in charge of his household during his travels.
