310: How to Create a Mentorship Map and Use It as a Tool for Grad School and Career Success

310: How to Create a Mentorship Map and Use It as a Tool for Grad School and Career Success

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:00:00] Grad school, along with many other academic and professional spaces, wasn't built for first gen and BIPOC folks like us. And yet here you are, navigating it all, often without the adequate support you deserve. That's why I created Office Hours with me, Doktora Yvette, a budget friendly, high impact coaching and consulting space designed specifically for first gen, BIPOC, and or neurodivergent grad students, postdocs, and early career professionals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's a 50 minute small group drop in session where you can ask me anything about productivity, imposter phenomenon, burnout, setting boundaries. grad school apps, funding and financial literacy, career development, and more. You can even stop by and just have me chat it up with you about a recent podcast episode if that works for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You'll receive strategies [00:01:00] and a supportive space to figure things out together. Spots are capped at eight participants to keep it intimate and interactive, and to make sure I can answer everyone's questions. Sessions happen twice a month for a limited time. To be honest, I'm not sure how long I'll keep this offer available.

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I firmly believe that none of us get to where we are on our own. We all have had mentors and femtors who have supported us in our journey. When I look back at my childhood, I can think about particular teachers who advocated on my behalf. I think about a middle school counselor who, when my dad passed away, was quick to refer me to counseling and grief groups.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I [00:02:00] think about teachers like my high school English teacher and high school math teacher who taught the AP courses and helped us see ourselves for the potential that we had and even helped us to teach one another and to support one another in navigating the college application process.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I will admit that I have had moments, especially in college and in grad school where I felt like I had very few or even no mentors, but I want to encourage you to rethink that if that's what you're thinking about right now, because I want to remind you that at any given point in time, you might already have access to mentors and femtors around you without realizing it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And that's why I'm going to walk you through an exercise of how to create your own mentorship map and why it can be used as your tool for [00:03:00] success.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: to the award winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place for first gen BIPOCs to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, and author, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Yvette. Today, we're talking about all things mentorship maps.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I am bringing this up [00:04:00] because the topic has actually come up in my speaking engagements, and I've noticed it's one of those things that every time I mention it, people resonate or they appreciate me sharing the resource. And you know me, I love sharing resources. I love creating tools or sharing pre existing tools, anything that can help you in your own grad school and career journey.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: If I can offer it on the podcast, I will. So today I have an episode and I also have a free download for you that is attached to the episode, which is pretty cool. I don't always get a chance to create my own resource to give you, but this time I was inspired and I want y'all to be not the first, but the second to get a copy of my own version of a mentorship map, which is what I'm calling a holistic femtorship map. I'll say a little bit more about this later on, but if you want to check it out, it's in the [00:05:00] show notes.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Okay. So let's get into the topic of a mentorship map. What's a mentorship map? It is a visual tool that helps you to document, categorize, and really just visualize what your mentorship support system or network looks like.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So instead of you assuming that I can only have one mentor at a time, because I used to think this way, just like I once used to think that I could only have one best friend at a time. And I remember someone telling me, wait, I have multiple best friends. And I thought to myself, You are allowed to have multiple best friends, that's a thing.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's the same concept here. If you're allowed to have multiple mentors and femtors. And so this map encourages that. Why? Because it has you visualize different areas that you might need support in. And then the [00:06:00] different people who can provide that support. One person might overlap in different categories.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But they might not. And you shouldn't expect a single mentor to fill in all of the categories and to meet all of your needs. That's not realistic. And so what are these categories look like? They are whatever categories are important to you. So you can really create your own. But from the mentorship maps that I pulled as additional references for today, so I pulled two of them.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The NCFDD Mentorship Map for Faculty, that's the National Center for Faculty Diversity. They have their own mentorship map for professors. And then there's also the GEMS program, which is a geosciences mentorship program. They have their own example of a mentorship map for undergrads, I believe. So check them out.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I'll link them in the show [00:07:00] notes if you want to use those or if you want to download mine. Mine is more for grad students and it has first gen BIPOC and neurodivergent students in mind. So what are some of the categories that you might see on these very common mentorship maps?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You might see professional development as a category and that's thinking about anybody who will help you build your career skills and advance professionally.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You might also have intellectual community and this is for, scholars, academics, or even, , independent researchers who want to stay connected with an intellectual community. So think about who is there to challenge you, to inspire your thinking, even to give you feedback. In my map, I actually merge the categories of intellectual [00:08:00] community and feedback.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You might also have a category for role models. And these are people you don't even necessarily have to know. When I think about role models, I think about everybody out there and who I look up to.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so anyone who you admire. Even if you don't have direct access to them, you can also have a category for sponsors or anyone who gives you access to opportunities. Who is advocating for you? Who is saying your names in rooms that you're not part of? Who can connect you with key people or refer you to opportunities?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Then there's accountability, who can provide you with accountability to make sure you stay on track with your short and long term goals. There's also emotional support, who can you lean on, this can include friends, family, it can include therapists and [00:09:00] coaches who will help you to process things emotionally.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And even in mine, this is actually a category that I didn't see in the other ones, which is why I wanted to create my own. I added a peer support category because for me personally, it hasn't just been people ahead of me who have supported me. It's been people who are also alongside me going through similar challenges who have provided that kind of support and guidance as they're navigating similar things as me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And then I also added a separate category for personal development, separate from professional development. And this is really about anything that's going to help you, anyone who's going to help you with growing, reflecting, and also promoting your well being. That's really important to me. It's not just about advancing in your career.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's also about making sure that you [00:10:00] are carving out a life that works best for you and that's not going to harm you. So those are some of the categories. Again, You wanna try as best if you want, , if you want to be more creative and do what I did and create your own, go ahead and create your own, or you can pull mine if you're a grad student and you like the categories that I included, or you can go ahead and get the copy of the, , NCFDD one if you're a professor and that one makes more sense for you, or go ahead and get the GEMS one if you're an undergrad and that one's simpler for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The point is, just create one or find one that you're going to use and then start to do the process of thinking through who is part of your support system. And once you have filled it out, you'll be able to see, okay, these are the folks that I have in my life. These are the people that I know. These are the people that I don't know, but still support me [00:11:00] through maybe the resources that they offer or through their books or through, you know, their podcasts.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It may be, I might show up in a category. In fact, the reason I even, the reason I'm even talking about mentorship maps is because my own mentee introduced me to this tool. I wasn't even aware of this tool until a mentee of mine told me about it. And he told me about it because he was filling out his mentorship map and told me I appeared in multiple categories.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And that's why he emailed me to check in. So in any case. It helps you to visualize who is part of your support system, who keeps showing up, who you might not know but is still supporting you, or who maybe you haven't been in touch with in a while and this might be a good reminder, oh, let me go back and check in with them the way my own mentee did that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And also, this is actually quite important too. It'll help you see the areas that you have the most gaps in. And this is [00:12:00] where you can be intentional about, okay, maybe I don't have a lot of support when it comes to intellectual community, but I have a lot of emotional support. So how can I fill that gap?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Who can I, you know, be in relationship with and nurture a relationship so that I can fill that gap? that gap. And it helps you to prioritize community building, to prioritize the networking, to prioritize making time to stay in touch with people. And I am saying this as someone who personally struggles with maintaining connections and struggles with socializing, hence the autism.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: But I have learned a couple of tips, a couple of strategies. And those are the things that I want you to remind yourself that it doesn't have to be super hard. It can be as simple as sending an update. I, [00:13:00] I know someone who I was once this person's supervisor, and they were a grad student at the time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Now they have a PhD. And I believe they're a postdoc now, but this person sends maybe once or twice a year, an email blast to all of her mentors and former mentors and supervisors and former supervisors. And I'm on this email blast. And I love it because in this email blast is just professional updates about her.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So it's almost like an email newsletter, but for everyone in her network that supports her. And I think that is. Such a great idea. I should probably do that, but it's okay. I have my own grad school femtoring newsletter. I'm good with newsletters, but for you, in your case, you could do something like that too, where you could just do once, twice a year, email blasts to all the people that you know that support you, or you could be more intentional and directly email, [00:14:00] like send actual tailored personalized emails to people that are current mentors or former mentors, just to let them know I'm here, I'm still thinking about you, like these are my updates, I hope you've been doing well.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It doesn't have to be super duper difficult or awkward.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Hi Femtees, I'm gently interrupting the show to let you know that you can be a sponsor for the Grad School Femtouring Podcast. Whether you're a small business owner, a book author, or part of an educational startup looking to reach a loyal audience, this is your chance to showcase your work. My listeners are first gen BIPOC college students, grad students and early career professionals who value mentorship, education, and empowerment. If it sounds like a fit, head to the show notes to learn more about sponsoring an episode. [00:15:00]

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So, I hope that as you fill out your map, you see what you have, you see what you don't have. You start to think through tapping into your community to stay in touch, that it helps you to be more intentional with getting the support that you need.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: This is why it's the key to success, or not the key. That's saying too much. This is why it can be one tool to help promote your success. Because it helps you, it reminds you, it's a visual aid to always remember these are the people who have my back and these are the areas that I need to nurture right now.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And once you get to a point where it's all full, that's great. That means you're doing a great job and that means, all right, let's sustain these relationships. That's what that means. Now, in terms of other things that come up for me, I want you to [00:16:00] be very careful and intentional with the relationships that you build.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You don't want it to feel forced. You don't want to, I, I get messages like this all the time that sound very. Transactional and extractive. So just remind yourself that with any relationship It's a give and take that you're also bringing something to the table. So remind yourself that you can still be a resource to your mentors to your femtors and that you want it to be reciprocal and you want to also make sure you take the lead because you might have a mentor that doesn't check in with you a lot because they have Dozens of mentees.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And whereas you might only have two to three professors you work with, they have dozens of students that they work with. So they might not have the time and energy to keep every week sending you an email to see how you're [00:17:00] doing. Even every month, they might not have the capacity for that. So you take the lead.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The other thing I want to mention has to do with common challenges. One common challenge that comes up is the challenge of I don't have access to mentors as I move up, there's fewer people that look and sound like me, how am I supposed to find these people? And I want to say two things tied to this. One is It is very, very real that as you move up, there are fewer people that look and sound like us.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: There are fewer folks who are first gen, there are fewer folks who are black, who are indigenous, who are POC in some way, shape, or form. Fewer Latine folks, fewer of, you know, folks of immigrant backgrounds. Fewer folks that come from, low income or working class backgrounds. That's just That's what happens as you move up because a lot of us get pushed out.[00:18:00]

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And what I want to encourage you is if you notice that to consider finding mentors who maybe don't look and sound like you, but who have shared values. That's one thing. And the other thing is to start to look beyond the current spaces. and walls and doors that you're part of. And by that I mean if you're only looking in your institution or in your job setting, can you look outside of that?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: If you're only looking in your local city, can you look outside of that? Are there online networks? Are there Any groups available? Are there any mentorship programs? Are there any industries that you're interested in building relationships with outside of your current industry? Different departments, etc.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So, you can [00:19:00] find people if you get more creative around where to find them and also, considering Just consider the option of having mentors who don't exactly look and sound like you. But again, I do believe that having a commonality of values is important, because otherwise, that can get really tricky when you have very clearly no shared identity, no shared backgrounds, and then no shared values.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's a lot harder to maintain a meaningful relationship that way. Let's say, if it's not this struggle of I can't access mentors, you're experiencing this feeling that I feel all the time of, I feel awkward reaching out. Trust me, I know exactly how you feel. I still feel that way, but I challenge that feeling and that thought.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Even when I feel it, I'm like, Oh, it's, I'm going to feel awkward either way. So might as well just [00:20:00] bite the bullet. So in this case, if you feel awkward reaching out, If it feels like a big deal, how can you make it into something really small or something that's like lowering the bar or lower stakes? So instead of, Hi, I really love your work.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Can you be my mentor? That's a big ask when they don't know who you are. Why not? Hi, just wanted to reach out and let you know that I really appreciate you for writing that article and so and so. Journal, and I recently read it and it made a big impact on my work. That's it. Just a simple thank you email, seeing if they respond back to you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Maybe you could also send a message where it's something else that's lowering the bar. Maybe it's just asking for a coffee chat or asking for an informational interview so that you're not asking them, Hey, can you. Dedicate [00:21:00] all this time and energy towards me to be your mentee right from the beginning, right from the start.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That feels like a lot of pressure. And I would be scared to make that big ask right away. I think it takes a lot of baby steps to get to the point where you eventually develop that mentoring relationship. With the exception of if you apply to a mentoring program and you know that there's the expectation that they're going to be your mentor.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The other thing that comes up a lot with a lot of the people that I work with, and just so happens I work with a lot of women and femmes, is that they say, I don't want to bother people. Oh my goodness. This is not the most common phrase that I hear and that also that I say. out loud to myself. I don't want to bother people.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I always feel like I bother people. It's really frustrating because most of the time I'm probably not bothering people and yet that thought still comes up. And so if you are like me and [00:22:00] are like a lot of us who have been socialized, I want to remind you, you're most likely not bothering people, but even if you feel like you're bothering someone, remember what I said earlier about mentoring relationships are not a one way street.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You have something valuable to offer and you have to remind yourself that this is where the. The personal growth part ties into this work. You need to know what your strengths are. You need to know what makes you, you. You need to know like, what is it that you can offer to this person, even if they're way more advanced in their career than you are, there is something you can offer them.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Ooh, I want to say something. I was just thinking about how I recently reconnected with a mentee of mine from back in 2012, 2013. I hadn't, I don't think we had [00:23:00] touched base in over 10 years where we were meeting over Zoom face to face. We have stayed in touch, but we had not met. Yeah, we had not met face to face.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so she recently reached out and I was so excited to hear from her. So we got on a call to catch up and oh my goodness, I absolutely love the time that we spent together. I loved hearing her life update of everything that has transpired in the last 10 years for her. The good, the bad, the ugly, all the things.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And it was just really nice to Be reminded of like, hey, our work matters and our impact remains even a decade later. And also, it's never too late to reach out. So if you're feeling like, uh, [00:24:00] I don't want to bother people. If this person had thought, I don't want to bother Yvette. And she wouldn't have reached out, I wouldn't have had such a beautiful morning catching up with her.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So, remind yourself that, remind yourself of what you have to offer, because some folks might be delighted to hear from you. Okay, the last thing that I know that is a common challenge is just this not knowing how. The how comes up a lot. It's like you go to grad school, you're expected to conduct research, but how?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You're expected to know a certain type of methods, but how? You're expected to teach, but how? You're expected to do all these things, and very rarely are there programs that actually teach you how to do these things, which is so frustrating. Like if you're in grad school and they're not teaching you how to do these, these things, and they expect you to already know, if you already know, you should already have the PhD.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So they should be teaching you this stuff. [00:25:00] But now I'm going on a rant. The whole point is that this whole concept of the how comes up a lot in my work because my work as I'm realizing it, and I'm being more vocal about it, fundamentally is about Building self efficacy and teaching you how to strengthen your executive functioning skills along with a lot of other stuff that I talk about, but that's one big part of what I do.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so that's why a lot of y'all keep coming back to the podcast because I'm teaching you the how. So I don't know where to start. I don't even know how to get started. That might be your challenge. And if that is your challenge, guess what? I just made it easy for you because in the show notes, you've got not one, not two, but three sample mentorship maps.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You've got mine, the femtorship map for grad students and professionals. You've got the NCFDD mentorship map for faculty. [00:26:00] And you've got the GEMS map for undergrads. Check them out. Go Use whichever one, use them all, whatever works for you, but just start filling it in and that will help you to overcome the how.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Now, the final thoughts for this episode is that this is just one of many, many tools that I hope that will help you in your academic and career journey. It really is just that. It's just a tool. Some of y'all might not need it. Some of y'all might feel like you're pretty good. You feel really good about your mentors and the support that you're receiving and others you might be feeling like how I felt in college and grad school where I had, you know, I might have had One faculty mentor might have had one advisor, but that one person didn't meet all my needs, and I didn't know how to build other relationships.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And [00:27:00] so if that's you, please, please, please, I encourage you to fill this out. I encourage you to take a baby step to reach out to someone. Slowly, but surely, before you know it, as you stay in touch with people, as you take the initiative to be in touch, as you send very like low stakes messages, check in, have a little coffee chat with folks, slowly but surely you can start to fill in the map and hopefully at some point.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You will have no gaps and you will feel like you have the support that you need to thrive. Okay. All right, y'all. I hope you found this helpful. And as always, I will talk to you all next time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second [00:28:00] way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and podcast playlists on all things grad school, productivity, and personal development.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at gradschoolfemtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name. Thanks again for listening. And until next time.