The Alumni Advising and Mentoring Initiative (AAMI) provides alumni the opportunity to give back to Yale-NUS College by sharing their expertise and experience with current students. By encouraging greater conversation between current students and alumni, the goal is to build a strong Yale-NUS community which will last beyond 2025.
Whether it’s delivering a Rectors’ Tea, participating in one-on-one mentorship, or being a panellist or advisor with the Centre for International and Professional Experience (CIPE) and Student Affairs Office (SAO), we hope that the bonds that you forge will help you support each other in the rest of your personal and professional lives.
Structure
The AAMI consists of three main elements across an academic year:
- The Alumni Mentorship Programme is the programme’s flagship, where alumni are paired up with current students one-on-one on Cross Campus and are able to develop a mentor-mentee relationship.
- Over the course of each semester, alumni can contribute by participating in Semester Advising sessions, existing programmes with CIPE and SAO that allows alumni to share their unique experiences or advise current students in small-group settings such as panels or workshops.
- Each academic year the Programme culminates in a Recognition Event, where the College recognises the time and effort that the alumni mentors and advisors have put into the programme.
Alumni Mentorship Programme
The Alumni Mentorship Programme is designed to enable alumni and current students to develop one-on-one mentor-mentee relationships. Over a two- to three-month period, mentors can meet their mentees, either online or in person, to discuss a variety of subjects. Topics which students might with to gather insights into include: making the most out of Yale-NUS, general career advice, wondering about whether to go to graduate school and how to time it, how to break into a specific field, making the transition from college to the next phase of life, or how to find purpose and meaning in life.
Alum Responsibilities
As an alumni mentor, your role is not to have all the answers, but to listen, ask questions, and act as a guide. While your lived experience is valid, it is not the only perspective available, and you are encouraged to remind your mentees to seek out various other perspectives and sources of information, be it from other alumni, staff and faculty at Yale-NUS, or other mentor figures. Resources on being a good mentor and mentee will also be made available during the programme to guide either side along on their mentoring journey.
Matching
Matching alumni mentors to their student mentees will be done through Yale’s Cross Campus platform. To be an alumni mentor, please register for Cross Campus if you have not already done so. Find out more about Cross Campus here.
Recognition Event
Participants in the Alumni Mentorship Programme will be invited to the Recognition Event for that year.
Current Programme
For more information about the Alumni Mentorship Programme for Academic Year 2023/2024 (held in April to July 2024), click here.
Semester Advising
Over the course of each semester, alumni will be able to participate in various panels, workshops, and other kinds of advising opportunities, sharing about their experiences to current students in small-group settings. Information about these advising sessions will be made available at the start of each semester, so that alumni are able to plan ahead and commit themselves to those periods.
Alum Responsibilities
Generally, alumni will liaise with the respective programme manager, usually a Rector or staff member from CIPE or SAO, who will be able to provide alumni advisors more information about the session, as well as its scope and intended student audience.
Recognition Event
Alums who participate in at least one Semester Advising opportunity will be invited to the Recognition Event for that year.
Current Programme
For more information about the Semester Advising opportunities for Semester 1 of Academic Year 2023/2024 (September to December 2022), click here.
Recognition Event
Each academic year of advising activities and opportunities culminates in a Recognition Event in early August, before the start of the next Academic Year. Students and alumni who participated in at least one session over the course of the academic year will be invited to attend. Not only does this allow the College to recognise the contributions of its alumni mentors, students and alumni also have the opportunity to interact and connect with one another in an informal setting.
Information for Current Students
If you are a current student at Yale-NUS, here’s what you need to know:
Over the course of each semester, you can continue to register for and attend CIPE- or SAO-organised panels, events, and workshops. CIPE and SAO will continue to inform you about these opportunities through their regular channels. You can look forward to seeing more alumni contributing these events, or have more opportunities to get in touch with alumni outside these events.
Alumni Mentorship Programme
Click here for more information about the Alumni Mentorship Programme 2024.
Recognition Event
Students who participate in the Alumni Mentorship Programme as a mentee will be invited to the Recognition Event in August.
Contact Alumni Affairs at alumni@yale-nus.edu.sg.
