Mentee stories

My GCSEs were during the pandemic, so when it came to sit my A Levels, I hadn’t done exams before. It was really stressful. But thankfully, my Brightside mentor gave me lots of good advice. He was reassuring and told me to sit for a minute then do the best I could.  

I’m now a total nerd about mentoring. I talk about it all the time! 

From my perspective, the biggest challenge facing young people today is deciding what career path to go down. Between Year 8 and Year 10 I changed my mine five times; I wanted to be a detective, zoologist, chef, doctor and lawyer.

Online mentoring changed my life. I wouldn’t have been successful in getting my law apprenticeship if it hadn’t been for Gareth, my mentor.  

I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do after GCSE and I had no idea where to start. I was interested in aviation, zoology and conservation but after that I was lost. I didn’t know if you needed a degree or an apprenticeship and I wasn’t sure which path to choose. Mentoring was a very useful tool to help with this; it gave me a push to start looking at new things.

My mentor was lovely; we bonded over our pets and that made me feel more connected to her. She made me feel calmer about applying via UCAS and the interviews process. It was so easy to talk to her because she’s not much older than me.

I knew I wanted to be a lawyer but I was concerned about the workload. My mentor was a working lawyer, so not only gave me advice about my UCAS application and interview questions, but also reassured me that you don’t need to overwork yourself to be successful. He told me about his personal experience of finding balance and saying no, and reminded me how important enjoying your free time is.

Mentoring was so important for me, especially during a lockdown where you only see the people you already know. You get to connect with someone you’d never speak to outside of school and that’s really important because it forces you out of your comfort zone.

If I had to describe my mentor in one word, I’d say amazing. She did the same A Levels as me so she also sent me her notes from Chemistry which were amazing; I’m still using them.