Brewing Success: When two people met in a café, it was mentor be 

The BCS Bristol and Bath Branch has been making some radical changes to its approach to wider society engagement, including a much more in-depth relationship with its universities. 

Dave Donaghy (Chair) and Max London have defined a new pilot programme providing industrial mentors to local undergraduate students. 

A Chance Encounter 

Earlier this summer, Dave and Max met while they were both working remotely in a coffee shop in Bath. Conversation quickly turned to software, university life, running, cycling and internships. Naturally, they ended up discussing whether industrial-student chats like this could turn into a mentoring scheme that’s available to all students, rather than left to chance. 

The Power of BCS 

The BCS CEO, Rashik Parmar, has talked about the immense value of our “convening power”, especially in light of the recent BCS Council trip to Belfast at the end of June, where we met with leaders in education, government and the third sector. But an additional, related, power of BCS allows us to ask “is this already a thing?”. The vast network of professionals inside BCS, and our connections to people in academia, education and government, mean that two people with an idea can go to BCS and query “is this worth doing? Is it like anything being done elsewhere? Who should we get involved to take it forwards?” 

Pilot Mentoring Programme 

A few chats later, what we now have is a decent definition of a pilot programme with enthusiastic engagement from three local universities: the University of Bath, Bath Spa University and the University of the West of England Bristol. 

We will be providing mentors from industry to students who have not yet had industrial contact, either because their course does not involve anything like an internship, or because it does have something like that, and we are just providing it earlier. 

This programme is set to run alongside the 2024/2025 academic year, with around 12 students in each of our three partner universities. This means that we need to recruit between 30 and 40 mentors, and we expect each mentor to meet with their mentee around 6 times during the year. 

An EDI Perspective 

One way that such a programme (in fact, any BCS programme) can add value to our industry is by addressing existing social and industrial inequalities. 

Our BCS Equity Groups (BCSWomen, EMBRACE, NeurodiverseIT and Pride) represent our members from social groups that have been historically, and are indeed currently, marginalised and disadvantaged both in our industry and in society. 

By engaging effectively with these groups, and with general EDI expertise, we have a significant opportunity to make a real change to the industrial opportunities - and therefore to the life opportunities - of people in these groups, with a natural extension of making our industry itself more effective and generally better by raising our game in the areas of equity, diversity and inclusivity. 

What we are looking for here from these groups is, broadly speaking, twofold: we want input to the structure of the programme itself, and the provision of mentors to work with students. 

A Student Perspective 

Although students are provided with extensive resources regarding their transition to work and participation in their professions, these tend to be generic, whereas what a student really wants is to stand out. There is no better way to do this than getting advice directly from industry professionals themselves. 

Due to the competitive nature of both short and long internships, and the impact they have on students’ futures, the internship application period can be a very stressful time. Lots of the anxiety comes from the unknowing, and so this program aims at those who are starting their search for this work experience. This is where the know-how from a mentor can help, being that they’ve been through the application processes themselves. 

We expect these connections to be invaluable in providing insight into what students can expect from potential employers; there will undoubtedly be learnings for employers here too, and businesses who choose to provide mentors may well reap these benefits earlier than their competitors. 

Call to Action 

Any programme like this has a call to action, and this one is simple: if you have experience to share, then step up and volunteer as a mentor. If you think your experience isn’t enough, but you’ve somehow ended up reading this article to the end, then think again: you’re engaged enough and positive enough that you probably have something valuable to share. Get involved. 

Bios 

Dave Donaghy MBCS CITP is a software engineer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Bristol, where he works closely with students and apprentices at all levels. He is also Chair of the Bristol & Bath Branch of BCS, Vice Chair and Volunteer Coordination Officer of the Digital Divide Specialist Group, Inclusion Officer of the Pride Specialist Group, and a member of Council. 

Max London is a student studying Maths and Computer Science at the University of Bath coming into his second year. He’s interested in the nature of how internships and experience can help students further their careers.