Mentoring: What's the Real Story?

When I think of "mentoring", I think of long-term relationships within an organizational structure. What I enjoy doing on the Internet is more like tutoring. I really enjoy helping students or newbie engineers find their way. Usually, my biggest contribution is helping them define the problem- once they get the right perspective, the solution becomes obvious. My primary pleasure comes from finding challenging problems that keep the gray matter functioning...

Just seconds before I reading your post, I was telling one of my colleague that I worked with many fair guys. I am an electrical & electronics professional but learned many mechanical thing from them. Even I learned arc & gas welding, spray painting, worked lathe machine cutting threads, milling parts, opened/ repaired many gear boxes, diesel, petrol engines, working with them, and so on.

Mentor-ships are available in research, management, etc. fields. If possible please you make a start mentor-ship in engineering field and I am willing to contribute.

Please share your own experience with mentoring, as well as observations about how common and useful it is in the engineering workplace.

I am a senior mechanical engineering student with a total ~1.5years of relevant experience.

For two years, I had e-mail communications with a seasoned (20+ years experience) mechanical/metal fabrication engineer. Apart from answering direct questions he, unintentionally or otherwise, provided a "big picture" perspective of engineering that has helped me immensely in my career. He helped diagnose me with Paralysis By Analysis following my first summer internship. This is a condition suffered by first-time engineers who, although smart, do not set out to ask themselves the correct question. How valuable is a correct answer to the wrong question ? I have since learnt to arrest the floods of ideas, lean back on the chair and define the problem correctly before I set out for a solution. How a problem is defined greatly affects how it is solved.

Also, considering that the mentor is a person very familiar with your industry and has an overall understanding of your skills, this is the BEST person to ask about how much you should get paid. I see no one better to ask how much is a fair compensation. Your coworkers cannot freely discuss their salaries (unless you know each other very well) and your boss...Not a good idea.

Watch out for HR trying to low-ball