Online mentor program to help women and minorities

The number of women and minorities in the career fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is disproportionately low, and an online mentorship program is working to turn that statistic around.

MentorNet, a website that has matched 30,000 STEM students with mentors from companies such as AT&T and Intel, has now opened its services to anyone with a university email address.

In the past, universities had to purchase a $5,000 annual subscription for students to participate.

While all demographics are welcome to sign up on the site, the company's main goal is to aid females and minorities in succeeding in STEM fields.

"To have a mentor who is in the industry who has gotten to the other side and is saying, ‘Hey, let me show you the ropes,' that's a true encouragement beyond getting good grades and doing homework," David Porush, president of MentorNet, said.

The mentor/mentee interaction is conducted completely online. Porush said this form of mentorship provides a convenient form of interaction for students that could benefit from communicating with successful STEM professionals.

To match a mentor with a student, an algorithm is used that takes into consideration the students' years in school, majors and what they consider to be their greatest hurdles in the STEM field.

Although many of the mentees are females and minorities, Porush said that the mentors are demographically representative of those that are in the profession, which, by and large are white males.

"We think that with proper discussion and resources that a white man can be sympathetic and help coach an African woman," Porush said. "The statistics from our relationships show that."

About 95 percent of students that have gone through the program have graduated from college with STEM degrees, Porush said.

The web-based program requires the mentor to facilitate conversation via email, much of which revolves around topics that are given to the mentors by the company.

Porush said that the topics are formulated to help students with obstacles that aren't necessarily lectured on in the classroom. For example, a mentor might spend a week chatting with a student on the importance of professional networking or the importance of what collaborative effort means in the workplace.

Mentors also help students with power struggles and discrimination issues that may arise in their career fields.

STEM majors from more than 100 schools have participated in program, but UCF students have yet to sign up, according to MentorNet records.

Civil engineering professor Ola Nnadi said that the program has potential for female and minority UCF students.

"Some might benefit from it; some might not. People perceive things and receive things differently," Nnadi said. "The online program sounds great, but there's no face to the names. I don't know what the outcome would be because there's no emotional connection."

Porush said that although in-person contact may be lacking, the facilitated discussion among mentor and mentee often blossoms into a friendship of sorts where the STEM professional makes themselves available to the students by phone or text.

Nnadi said that women and minorities often need an extra push, which MentorNet strives to provide, to make it in the field.

"For every woman who goes into STEM, there's always that glass ceiling which is very difficult to crack," Nnadi said. "You just have to compete with the boys to be able to get there."

Porush said that only 24 percent of women hold positions in STEM careers, and the National Science Foundation reports that 8 percent are African American. A similarly low number of employees are Hispanic.

In contrast, 68 percent of MentorNet participants are female, and 14 percent are African American or Hispanic.

"It's something I might look into later on when I'm looking for internships," said freshman computer engineering major Christina Leichtenschlag, who one day hopes to work for IBM. "If this program helps us get ahead, that's just another thing we can use as an advantage to prove to everyone that we're equal with men when it comes to what we can do."

"When you bring in people of diverse background, you bring in diverse perspective," Nnadi said. "That is why there is that need to mentor women in the STEM program."