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.

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

Goda was part of the latest cohort of our Brightside Mentoring Programme. She shares her thoughts on the impact mentoring has had on her this year.

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 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.

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.