Empowering International Graduate Students Through a Peer Mentoring Program
Veronika Maliborska, Associate Teaching Professor, Northeastern University, Boston, USA
Natalya Watson, Associate Teaching Professor, Northeastern University, Boston, USA
Peer mentoring refers to an interpersonal relationship that involves a more experienced student intentionally supporting, counseling, and guiding a less experienced mentee (Johnson, 2015). In graduate school, peer mentoring helps navigate academic requirements and develop a professional identity, which may be especially daunting for new international students. Drawing on their own experiences, mentors can share their emerging expertise, deliver constructive feedback, serve as a discipline specific language resource, and assist with goal setting. Beyond academic guidance, a mentor’s role may also include being a trusted friend, primarily in helping mentees to feel comfortable on campus, contributing to mentees’ sense of belonging. Research on peer mentoring found that mentees value mentors who are approachable, demonstrate care for others, and show a willingness to listen and make changes to adapt to mentees’ needs (Wong et al., 2022). Mentor-mentee relationships are transformative and inherently reciprocal, offering mentors opportunities to practice professional competence in leadership and intercultural communication (Lamont, 2024). Additionally, mentors may further contribute by reviewing course materials and offering their perspective on the content, insights that can also help their mentees’ instructors better understand new international students’ challenges and learning needs. In this article, we describe the practical implementation and pedagogical benefits of a peer mentoring model designed for a graduate pathway program.
Implementation of the Student Mentor Program
The Global Pathways (GP) program at Northeastern University was designed for graduate international students who aspire to pursue a master’s degree at Northeastern but need to improve their academic English skills. The curriculum offers “student-centered English language and credit-bearing classes, experiential learning, co-curricular programming and support, and immersion in United States culture and Northeastern campus life” (Global Pathways Northeastern University). Students join the program for one or two semesters and complete several graduate ESL courses and one course in their graduate degree program. The majority of our graduate students are from China, with a few coming from other South Asian countries or South America. The GP mentoring program is integrated into the Research and Writing for Graduate School course, which is structured according to the principles of project-based learning. In this course, students explore a topic from their destination program, design and complete a small research project, and write a field report. To help students socialize into disciplinary discourse, we designed a mentoring program to introduce GP students to field knowledge, offer a more discipline-sensitive approach to learning academic English, and develop personal and professional relationships with peers. The mentors are advanced graduate students (the recruitment process is described below) who are well-positioned to address academic topics and model learning behaviors valued in field communities.
The main goal of the GP mentoring program is to match our graduate international students with experienced graduate students from the same discipline. The recruitment process takes place at the beginning of every semester. After we identify the destination programs of our current students, we send out an announcement with the application form through the newsletters of several colleges, and, in some cases, we reach out to other faculty for recommendations. The mentor qualifications described in the announcement include the following criteria: (1) graduate student (including international students) with at least one completed quarter/semester, (2) strong problem-solving, communication, and time management skills, and (3) knowledge of the research process and project development. Next, we interview the applicants, compile a list of mentors for the current semester, and send out an invitation for an orientation session to all mentors. The mentors are paired with mentees who have the same or a similar program of study, after which an introductory email is sent out to all pairs. Sometimes we pair one mentor with two mentees, but we have found that a one-on-one mentoring approach usually works best.
Throughout the semester, mentors are expected to meet with their mentees at least once a week (in person or online), and complete weekly updates. We also invite mentors to participate in several class activities in the Research and Writing for Graduate School course. For example, course instructors organize Research Dialogue workshops, one of which provides GP students with an opportunity to share their research project ideas while mentors offer feedback. Another workshop in this series features mentors showcasing their own course projects to illustrate graduate-level coursework across various disciplines. In addition, mentors serve as expert panelists at the Student Research Conference. GP students incorporate reflections on their mentor-mentee meetings and Research Dialogue workshops into their weekly research journal assignments, allowing them to process key insights from their discussions.
The GP mentoring program lead works closely with all course instructors, holds check-in sessions with the mentors to provide ongoing support, and offers suggestions for effective communication and conflict resolution. To prepare for their weekly meetings, mentors are sent an update about the current stage of the projects in the Research and Writing for Graduate School course and the main tasks that students are working on. This allows for a structured, task-based dialogue, which creates a multitude of opportunities for GP students to re-examine their learning habits and begin appropriating skills that are needed to succeed in the new learning community. Mentors pose focused questions to GP students and encourage them to seek more thoughtful answers to their research questions, provide guidance for various data collection methods, and offer feedback on data interpretation. The evaluation of GP students’ course reflections suggests that mentors contribute to GP students making great strides in developing new epistemological values and learning disciplinary discourse.
Another significant advantage of this mentoring program is the emerging field expertise that mentors contribute from diverse disciplines. While GP instructors provide essential language support and general academic guidance, they may not always have expertise in the latest industry-specific practices that GP students require for their projects. This gap in specialized knowledge can make it challenging for students to fully engage in advanced research. Mentors serve as invaluable resources by providing insights into up-to-date research trends and exposure to the expectations of their respective fields. The mentorship experience also encourages professional networking, allowing students to create connections that guide them beyond the classroom, whether in future research, internships, or career opportunities.
While the GP mentoring program has been highly beneficial for both mentors and mentees, it has also faced several challenges that required adjustment. One of the main hurdles has been scheduling conflicts and the fact that some mentors were based on other campuses. To address this, we have emphasized flexibility by allowing meetings to take place online through Teams or Zoom. This adjustment has helped maintain engagement despite physical distance. Another challenge has been mentor retention. Since this is a fully volunteer-based program, some mentors have struggled to balance their commitments, and occasionally mentors have withdrawn midway through the semester. To mitigate this, we ensure that during the recruitment process, we are transparent about time commitments and expectations. When mentors do step away, we try to reassign mentees to other mentors or integrate them into group mentoring sessions to ensure they still receive guidance. Over time, we have found that offering recognition through digital badges has helped motivate mentors to stay committed. Addressing these challenges has strengthened the program’s sustainability, ensuring that both mentors and mentees continue to gain meaningful experiences.
To acknowledge the contributions of our mentors, we have developed a Level 2 Digital Badge (issued by Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies), which recognizes the mentors’ hands-on experiences in professional communication, intercultural and interpersonal interaction, leadership, and critical thinking. We have integrated the digital badge into a Canvas page used for sharing resources and supporting mentors. The requirements to obtain this badge are maintaining consistent contact with mentees throughout a 10-week period and completing a reflection assignment on their experiences, emphasizing the development of academic and professional competencies gained through their participation in the program.
Peer mentoring is an inherently dialogical process, involving and transforming both mentors and mentees. Through this program, mentors gain communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills that are not frequently learned in traditional student roles. For example, they recognized where they may need to explain an idea further, breaking down field-specific language to convey technical terms or concepts, or determining language proficiency versus concept misunderstandings. Self-discovery and cross-cultural skills in a leadership position emerged, with one mentor observing:
“It was educational to notice their different ways of thinking and trying to understand where they were coming from. I was raised with western media and western culture...Now I am working with somebody with a drastically different culture, a much bigger language barrier. It compelled me to look for more effective ways to help my less-experienced peers.”
Overcoming moments of disappointment and constantly adjusting their strategies throughout the semester, mentors gained a sense of reward for helping novice students adapt academically and establish personal bonds with their mentees. Ultimately, this mentoring program is capable of equipping GP students with both the linguistic and disciplinary tools necessary for academic and professional success and offers valuable experiences to graduate students who seek to improve their leadership and intercultural communication skills.
References
Global Pathways Northeastern University. (n.d.). Northeastern University. Retrieved February 1, 2025, from https://international.northeastern.edu/global-pathways/
Johnson, B. (2015). On being a mentor: a guide to higher education faculty. Routledge.
Lamont, J. (2024). ‘We’re kind of outsiders’: MA student-interns as peer mentors on a pre-sessional internship programme. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 31, 1–19. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Wong, S., Soh, S., & Wong, M. (2022). Intercultural mentoring among university students: The importance of meaningful communication. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 91, 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2022.08.008
Dr. Veronika Maliborska is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Global Pathways and NU Immerse programs at Northeastern University. Her research interests include second language writing, the learning potential of writing, the pedagogical potential of individual conferences in ESL courses, and the identity formation of international students in graduate research courses.
Dr. Natalya Watson is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Global Pathways Program, Northeastern University of Boston. She teaches academic writing and research skills to international students. Her research interests include project-based language learning, language learner and teacher identity, and genre pedagogy.