Mentor Program

With it’s interdisciplinary and international staff and student body, the SDAC offers a diverse and productive learning atmosphere. To improve the chances of the students even further as well as balance academic differences, SDAC offers an additional Mentoring Program for our students.

What is the Mentoring program?
To give each student an academic consultation and support during their time in the program SDAC offers individual help via a student-teacher-mentoring program. Each student is free to choose a mentor of the staff to have an individual contact person for academic questions during the two years of study. Mentors might help choose fitting elective classes, additional courses, help compensate and improve missing academic backgrounds and more.

How do I get assigned to a mentor?
You are free to choose a mentor of the SDAC staff. Please get in contact with them and discuss if your chosen staff member is free to take you on as a mentee. Besides exceptional cases -when a mentor has already taken on too many mentees – it should not be a problem to pair you with your chosen staff member.

Who is available as a mentor?
The students can choose from the whole SDAC staff, implying the professors and research fellows. While affiliated professors are not excluded due to their many responsibilities outside the program additional SDAC mentoring is very limited and must be based on special reasons. If you would like to choose an affiliated professor please discuss this beforehand with the program coordinator.

How often could I meet my mentor?
We encourage all mentor-mentee- teams to meet at least once a month for short check-ups. Please do not hesitate to get in contact with your mentor at any time.

Can I change my mentor later?
You are free to change your mentor at a later point and in some cases it might be recommended based on a change in your academic focus. However, please inform your previous mentor about such plans early on. Regarding your decision for a new mentor, please get in contact with them on your own.

Can I choose more than one mentor?
While you cannot choose more than one mentor, the support of the SDAC staff is not limited to them. Certainly, the rest of the staff is still available for questions and a close cooperation with your mentor and other staff members might be useful depending on the field of interest.

Is my mentor automatically the supervisor of my thesis?
No, the mentor program does not necessarily have to be your thesis supervisor. Of course, depending on their academic background your mentor might be a suitable choice for supervising the thesis as well.