Coleen Murty is a PhD student funded through the BGS University Funding Initiative (BUFI) who has been taking part in the Social Mobility Foundation mentoring scheme. Many BUFI students are involved with activities outside their research such as volunteering and outreach programmes, making them much more rounded and contributing further to their personal development skills. Being a world leading geological survey, the BGS is dedicated to working for the benefit of society and thus, improving the social mobility of young people wishing to pursue a career in environmental sciences is highly relevant to what they do. The UK has one of the lowest social mobility indexes and highest inequality in the developed world. A low ability child from a high income family is 35% more likely to be a high earner than a high ability child from a low income family. Today employers focus on past academic ability/polish rather than potential, and gender/ethnicity rather than socio-economic background.
The Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) are a charity which aims to make a practical improvement in social mobility for high-achieving young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Every year the SMF supports over 1500 year 12/S5 students across the UK, who have the ability to flourish at top universities and professions but lack the encouragement and networks to help them get there. This is my main reason for becoming a mentor with the charity in April 2018 and is the first time I’ve ever been part of such a rewarding and influential scheme that makes a positive difference to young people’s lives all over the UK. In addition to the mentoring scheme, the SMF offers other services as part of their programme such as helping students get industrial work placements etc.
Being a mentor allows me to share the knowledge and experiences I’ve had specialising in a science-based discipline and encourage future generations to pursue their chosen career path. This not only improves the skills, knowledge and confidence of a bright young person, it also allows me to develop my communication and feedback skills. Mentoring gives you the opportunity for self-reflection, looking at how you got to where you are and what you’ve learned.
The process of mentoring generally involves providing an insight into a professional career which the student aspires to enter as you are likely to be the only person/one of the few people they’ve ever met in the sector and thus, your role as a mentor is invaluable to them. The SMF pair you with your mentee based on your profession and career sector they wish to enter. The mentoring cycle runs for one year and mainly consists of communicating through email and possible meetings if your mentee is based in the same city (which isn’t always the case). As a mentor you can use different approaches to help your mentee reach their goals; this could be anything from providing insights of university life, giving advice on applications, personal statements or subject-specific guidance etc. Being based in Newcastle, all my e-mentoring work takes place here however the charity provides options to attend local/national meet ups where you can meet your mentee. The flexible mentoring approach allows email communications with your mentee to be as often as weekly or fortnightly, however the charity do prefer if this is at least once every fortnight so the mentee can really benefit from continual guidance and encouragement.
Overall, I highly recommend this scheme, it’s just one of the many support services offered by the SMF to help these school students in every way they can, plus it’s great to be involved with something out with the research as it can get isolating at times! The charity also provide support to mentors as we aren’t expected to know everything! So even if you’re not sure how to answer a question or provide guidance on personal statements (as it was a long time ago – I know mine was!), there is always someone there for advice in case its needed.
If you would like to know more about the Social Mobility Foundation, visit their website. There are many ways to get involved including: mentoring, providing work placements, offering venues and speakers for events etc. The charity are currently active in; Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester and London. However, they are working on regional expansion to reach students and professionals in areas with high social mobility issues.
To sign up for the next mentoring cycle with the Social Mobility Foundation then just click here.
Coleen Murty is supervised by Dr Christopher Vane (BGS) and Dr Geoff Abbott (Newcastle University). The aim of BUFI is to encourage and fund science at the PhD level. Currently the BGS supports over 100 PhD students based around 35 UK universities and research institutes.
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