First-Generation Students

Students who have come to the UK for their safety due to a dangerous situation in their home country (including Refugees and Asylum Seekers)

Interested in Mentorship?

Our Mentorship Programme

Our Mentorship Programme has been built with the intention to help people from under-represented communities thrive in university - a place that can be hard to understand without any guidance or experience.

To do this My Academic Family mobilises volunteers with university degrees to help students from the four groups that you can see above. We started our work with a focus on first-generation students, who are more likely to come from low-income, care experienced, ethnic minority or refugee/asylum seeking backgrounds. 

We want to be a source of support for under-represented students who are working on their university degree, as well as a partner to universities themselves who want to see more successful outcomes for all registered students. We aim to connect first-generation students with mentors who can serve as a source of information, reassurance, and a safe sounding board as students learn about academic culture and the world of opportunities and programmes that university provides. 

We want our Mentorship Programme to help first-generation students to close the ‘completion gap’ which exists between them and students who have the support and advice provided by parents who have completed their university degrees. We provide support throughout a student’s time at university, to give them the best chance at not just succeeding at getting a university degree, but thriving while they’re there. 

This service is free for the first-generation, care experienced, estranged and refugee/asylum seeking students that we provide it for. 

Is Mentorship the right thing for you?

There are many benefits to registering for mentorship with My Academic Family. Students who are part of our Mentorship Programme will have monthly meetings with their mentors, giving them the chance to discuss any questions, issues or topics related to their university studies with someone who has successfully completed their own university degree. The goal is to help students engage with university culture and successfully navigate the university environment. 

Mentors can help students figure out things that they never even knew they didn’t know! 

Students who register with My Academic Family will also get access to a whole host of different resources and information, as well as access to our Discord Community, where they can talk to other students in the Mentorship Programme! 

We also try our best to host both online and in-person events every so often for students and mentors to network, chat and meet the people behind the screens a little bit easier! 

We provide one-on-one support, an online academic community and resources for students, so if that all sounds like something you would be interested in, and you are part of one of our core groups, please fill in the form on this page!

Topics that mentors and students can expect to cover include:

• The ebb and flow of stress/busy-ness throughout the academic year and within a single semester

• How to approach staff and faculty to ask questions or raise issues

• Deep-dive discussions on the purpose and value of the syllabus as a document

• How to make the most out of lecturer office hours

• How much time a student is expected to spend weekly on their studies outside of class

• What kind of resources exist for different kinds of support needs (mental health, writing skills, etc)

• The importance and value of building one’s own support networks (through making friends in class and participating in campus societies)

• Living in student accommodations (or away from home more generally) for the first time

• Networking and skill-development opportunities available at the university

• How to access and engage with research conferences

this is where the become a mentor stuff goes