Mentorship: Some Experiences, Reflections, and Suggestions

Mentoring in CSE and Beyond: Personal Support in Professional Development—Patty Baskin, Leslie Neistadt, and Barbara Gastel have long been leaders for the CSE Mentorship program. Based on a session from the 2024 CSE Annual Meeting in Portland, they have developed a series of articles on mentorship. The other two articles are available here: https://doi.org/10.36591/SE-4704-02, https://doi.org/10.36591/SE-4704-03 Mentorship has existed for millennia, but the current emphasis on mentorship in professional contexts seems relatively recent, as does the sometimes-related concept of imposter syndrome. Although the term “mentor” is based on a character in The Odyssey, the term “mentee” seems to date to 1940.1 A published description of the imposter phenomenon first appeared in 1978, as noted in the accompanying piece2 by Leslie Neistadt. The term “imposter syndrome” seems to have first appeared in 1982.3 My time as a mentee, mentor, and person interested in mentorship has spanned much of this recent era. In this article, I share some experiences, reflections, and suggestions. Some Experiences My experiences as a mentee date back to the late 1960s. A scientist whose laboratory I worked in while in high school became a mentor and a model for my own mentorship style.4 Ditto for an academic physician for whom I worked in summers during college and medical school. Not so for another potential mentor, assigned through a science communication fellowship program. Although we shared an office—where he smoked incessantly, as was still allowed—he barely acknowledged me. I learned from his skillful work but obtained mentorship from others at the […]