International Commitment

Every year, numerous students from abroad come to Bielefeld to live and study. The International Mentoring Programme aims to support these newcomers during the settling-in phase by providing international students with a mentor from a higher semester who is available as a contact for questions and problems.

What you do as a mentor

• You support an international mentee for one semester. An extension is possible under certain conditions. For Erasmus and cooperation students, this is the full duration of their stay, which is one to two semesters.
• You provide support in everyday life at the university, e.g. in understanding the electronic course catalogue (ekvv), in finding the right contact person for questions, etc.
• You provide support, for example, when going to the authorities and dealing with formalities.
• You and your mentee go to the university canteen together and do things together in and around Bielefeld.

What you get out of it as a mentor

• You get involved in a good cause.
• You expand your social, communicative and intercultural skills.
• You will probably have a lot of fun in joint discussions and activities with your mentee.
• You will receive a confirmation of your commitment.

Time expenditure

The time commitment depends on the needs of the mentee(s). However, we expect regular personal contact and that a personal meeting takes place at least once a month.

Procedure of the matching

As soon as we receive your registration, we will send you a message. Depending on the period and the situation, we will send you the contact details of the mentee. If no matching is possible at the moment, we will arrange a match at a later date. In this case, you will be put on a waiting list. As a rule, mentoring begins a few weeks before the start date of lectures.

We expect each mentor who registers for the mentoring programme to be open to students from all subject areas and countries of origin.

The International Mentoring Programme covers the following areas:

 

The programme is not a language tandem programme! If you are interested in a language exchange and are looking for a tandem partner, please contact the Teutoburger World Tandem.

Introduction for Mentor

Every semester, we offer several dates for the introduction to mentoring, usually during the semester break. In the approximately 2-hour introduction, you will receive a lot of information that will help you to support your future mentee. In addition, you will have the opportunity to get to know the other new mentors of the semester and to exchange ideas with them. Participation is of course free of charge.

We will inform you of the dates, whereupon you can register with us by email.

Mentor certificate