At 5 p.m on 9th April 2021, the program "The Review Conference ½ Mentoring Journey '' of the Business Administration Alumni Club took place at the Vo Van Tan campus of Ho Chi Minh City Open University.

Mentors and Mentees were at the program.

Due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, the program took place later than expected. Although it was heavy raining, the atmosphere in the program was always heated by the enthusiasm and excitement of Mentors and Mentees. These graduates and the students, who ignored the bad weather, came to join the program with a willing and exciting mood to make it more fun, fascinating ,and interesting.

Ms. Thuy Anh, Head of Business Administration Department, gives the opening speech.

The Mentoring Program was a useful playground for students and alumni. It was a place that creates opportunities for active, enthusiastic, and aspiring students to learn about living and working experiences from Mentors. Mentors who had known and had vastly experienced in the marketplace had to go through many failures to have success today. Although Mentors graduated for a long time, they were always ready to come back to support the university and students so that students had the opportunity to learn more experiences, exchange knowledge, and challenge themselves. As a result, it is a successful program that could help two generations understand each other better and bring more good values to everyone.

The program was happening

According to the "one- to- one" format, until 15th April 2021, the program had 32 pairs (mentors and mentees) participating. Mentor and mentee couples actively met to exchange life stories, share knowledge and experiences. At the same time, mentors also gave advice and directions to solve problems and difficulties for their mentees. Moreover, mentors also help to search for job opportunities for mentees. As we see that, a mentor who was not only the mentee's second instructor but also the sharer, friend, inspirator, and connector among mentees, would help mentees to challenge themselves and accept change for the better.

Mentees expressed their gratitude to the mentors

Besides the success of the program, there were still many shortcomings that needed to be overcome, such as time. Mentors were unable to arrange their time to join the program and met their mentees. Several mentors and mentee couples had stopped participating for some reasons. Since then, mentors and mentees had exchanged views to give directions and changes which helped to make the program more lively and attractive.

Mr. Phat, Program Director, gave comments on the program

Mr. Hai, a Mentor, gave comments on the program

A Mentee gave comments on the program

Through these comments and with everyone's efforts next time, the program in season 2 will improve according to the more highly, new and engaging format, but it’s still within the program framework. Creating more meetings between mentors and mentees, may be more than once a month, so that the distance between them can be closer and helping mentors to have more experience with young people as well as come out of their comfort zone for mentees. Besides, mentees should exchange different mentors to learn to get more experiences and different perspectives on issues. Young people should strongly question and connect with mentors because you will study more useful things from mentors' sharing. At the end of the program “The Review Conference ½ Mentoring Journey”, the organizers selected 17 winning pairs and awarded them with prizes following the program format. Depending on the number of meetings between mentors and mentees, there would be 4 kinds of prizes for pairs: Outstanding, Friendly, Impressive, Perfect.

17 pairs of mentors and mentees won the program award

 Before closing the program, everyone happily took pictures together to celebrate ½ of their journey.

With the success of the season 1 program and the efforts to improve the program, hopefully, the program will create a more successful season 2 to bring more value to Alumni and students.