VICEROY DECREE Virtual Institute is seeking mentors with backgrounds in Cybersecurity, Electromagnetic Spectrum, Cryptography, and/or Data Science.
Each mentor will engage with VICEROY DECREE VI scholarship recipients to act as a role model, participate in regular monthly gatherings to provide career guidance in DoD and DIB careers, participate in networking events with scholars and our industry partners and in DECREE informational sessions with high school students, and support advertising and communicating Train the Trainer opportunities to community colleges.
Note
Mentors will be provided with a small stipend for their participation and efforts.
1. Description
The VICEROY program targets undergraduate students specializing in cybersecurity and EMS. As these scholars are at the cusp of their professional journey, it’s pivotal to guide them towards becoming an integral part of a workforce that fulfills the requirements of the DoD and DIB.
To achieve this goal, all scholars will be supported by mentors while they are completing the VICEROY DECREE accreditation. The mentor-scholar relation is reciprocal, so scholars can use mentors as role models, and the mentor will also come to know the mentee quite well, with the ultimate goal of aiding them in planning and understanding their professional trajectory.
For many reasons, mentors play a very decisive role in our Virtual Institute. First, they will work with their mentees to clarify and establish their career goals. For most of our scholars (sophomore and juniors) it would be the first time they can define specific career objectives that are realistic, achievable, and measurable. Without doubt, setting these objectives, and following them, would be the center of mentor-mentee interactions.
At the time that mentors help to define a course of action for mentees towards their objectives, mentors will keep them on track and help them to assess the advances they are making. In fact, this mentor follow-up pattern will also help to develop the mentee’s particular skills that will be helping them along the way in:
- How to Effectively communicate at different levels (personal, professional, cultural, …)
- Gain consciousness about workplace and jobs roles
- Ask for guidance and support when needed
- Gain Leadership skills in how to support/guide others
About this final aspect, mentorship is one of the most key methods to cultivate leadership skills, and it is necessary to remark that our initiative also looks for building leaders in the field of cybersecurity and EMS. For this reason, our mentors will cultivate this specific skill in each of their interactions with the scholars. And, at the same time, we will look for mentors who could also serve as inspiration and role-models for the scholars, able to spark or enhance those skills in their mentees and, like any other career development objective, follow it up closely to ensure their improvement.
2. Mentor’s presentation session
Mentors first contact with scholars will be based on conducting a thematic session to showcase various inspiring facets of their expertise, including:
- Professional career
- Academic background
- Research projects or areas of interest
- Military career
- Leadership roles
- And more…
3. Scholars-Mentors periodic interviews
Each scholar will meet their mentor 3 times over the semester, with the meetings scheuled in advanced and expected to be approximately 35 minutes long.
One-on-one meetings can be conducted either online or in person, based on the preferences of both the mentor and mentee.
The objectives of these periodic mentor-mentee meetings include:
- Understanding of the mentee’s goals and motivations.
- Setting and tracking realistic, measurable career objectives.
- Establishing and monitoring leadership challenges.
- Evaluating the mentee’s strengths and areas for improvement.
- Implementing and overseeing action plans.
Following each meeting, scholar will provide a brief summary of the session for the Virtual Institute’s records. You can use the following template to collect responses from your scholars.
4. Mentors commitment estimation
We anticipate each mentor dedicating approximately 1 hour per week per scholar (this is an average time, and hours can be distributed throughout the mentoring process).
For a regular load of 4 mentees over a semester, mentors are expected to invest approximately 60 hours in the semester (20 hours per month for 4 months).
The breakdown of a mentor’s tasks is as follows:
- Conducting and preparing for the mentor’s presentation session
- Mentoring scholars through 3 follow-up meetings
- Preparing a report for each student after the 3 sessions
- Writing a general semester reflection report (here is an example of the contents of the expected report)
- Participate in the program evaluation interview/survey.