Amy Foust was having a crisis, one of those nerve-wracking, what-will-I-do-with-my-life traumas that undergraduates face.
Having taken several biochemistry classes at Dartmouth College, she loved her prospective major. But she wasn’t sure what she would do with her degree. The obvious answer -- medical school, then perhaps a career as a pediatrician -- didn’t appeal to her. An alternative -- being “locked in a closet” at a research laboratory day after day -- seemed even less attractive.
She knew she wanted children someday, but she’d heard that science is an unforgiving discipline. “You can’t leave the work force for several years to raise a family,” she says. “If you do, you’re out of it.”
So she was planning to switch her major to English. But two years ago, she joined an unusual mentor program at Dartmouth, one conducted entirely by electronic mail. “E-Mentoring” links female students to professionals in science, engineering, and mathematics. Ms. Foust, now a junior, has had the same mentor for more than two years, and says what she’s learned in the process has changed her views about making a career in science.
After an internship at a pharmaceutical company last summer, she is considering a career with a drug manufacturer. Another option, she says, is working as a consultant, like her mentor, Corinne Mayland, who is employed by a health-care-consulting company near Boston.
“My mentor has really given me a more realistic picture of what’s going on out there,” Ms. Foust says. “I knew I didn’t want to live with a beeper on my hip and get thrown up on by little kids. But I had never considered that I could go to school and get a Ph.D. and make drugs.”
In the next five years, organizers of a national program that is similar to Dartmouth’s hope to give many more women who are studying engineering, mathematics, or science the support of mentors in their disciplines.
Carol B. Muller, who created the Dartmouth program two years ago, started the national version, called “MentorNet,” in January. Fifteen colleges are participating, and organizers so far have matched 225 students with professionals. MentorNet, Ms. Muller says, is the only formally organized electronic-advising program with participants at more than one college.
Mentor programs are a valuable tool for encouraging women to break into fields dominated by men, such as math and science, says Ms. Muller, a former associate dean of engineering at Dartmouth who now divides her time between directing MentorNet and consulting for non-profit organizations. The programs can also help keep those students going once they’ve started their studies.
“Because these fields have grown up with a male-oriented culture, there are often unspoken or subtle expectations for behavior and ways to get things done that are less accessible for women,” Ms. Muller says. “A mentor can provide that kind of information.”
Although e-mail may seem impersonal, it eliminates the need to schedule face-to-face meetings, as well as the awkwardness that sometimes goes with them, Ms. Muller says. Students can ask questions -- and their mentors can reply -- at any hour of the night or day. Although professors and other students can often provide similar encouragement, contact outside of academe has proved invaluable for many students, she says.
“It’s nice to be able to interact with somebody older,” says Karolyn Abram, a sophomore at Dartmouth who plans to major in computer engineering. “My mentor knows what kinds of majors will get you what sorts of jobs, and that’s been a great resource.”
MentorNet, which Ms. Muller helped develop as a project of the Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network, a non-profit educational group based in Lafayette, Ind., is sponsored by the AT&T and Intel Foundations and is housed at San Jose State University. Undergraduate and graduate students alike can participate.
This semester, MentorNet is close to its goal of matching 250 female students with mentors, who work at several trade associations and companies, including the Association for Women in Science, the Society for Women Engineers, DuPont, Sun Microsystems, AT&T, and Intel. Each mentor is assigned to work with one student each year. After that, the student and the mentor may choose to be reassigned to each other for another year, or to be assigned to others.
Eventually, Ms. Muller says, a female student at any college will be able to fill out a form on MentorNet’s World-Wide Web page indicating her interests and area of study. A computer will then match her with an appropriate mentor. Ms. Muller also hopes to set up electronic mailing lists on specific topics related to women in the workplace.
The program’s organizers aim to match 5,000 pairs of students and mentors over five years. The mentors are provided with some training -- via e-mail -- and the program’s only requirement is that the mentors and students communicate at least twice a month. Both men and women are permitted to serve as mentors, Ms. Muller adds.
Mentor programs benefit the mentors as well as the students, say participants in Dartmouth’s E-Mentoring program. Karla M. Reynolds, an engineering manager at I.B.M., in Burlington, Vt., who serves as Ms. Abram’s mentor, says it puts her in touch with students who will be good candidates for jobs when they graduate. But mostly, Ms. Reynolds says, she enjoys sharing her experiences.
“I’m sort of forging ground, and I’d like to take some of the experience I’ve gained over the past 20 years and share that with somebody else,” she says. “It’s nice to feel the students’ enthusiasm and excitement for where they’re heading.”
More information is available at MentorNet’s Web site (http://www.mentornet.net). The E-mentoring program, too, has a Web site (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wisp).