Mentoring Engineering Undergraduate Students


Mentoring undergraduate engineering students requires intentional planning, structured engagement, and clear pathways for growth. This webpage outlines our three-phase mentoring framework (an idea explored by the Office of Undergraduate Research in Phases of Mentoring - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University)



It is designed to support mentors and students throughout the research experience. For each phase, we provide practical resources including planning guides, recruitment and selection tools, onboarding materials, project engagement templates, and evaluation frameworks. Our goal is to offer a consistent, supportive structure that helps mentors build effective research environments and helps students develop meaningful skills, confidence, and long-term academic or professional direction.

1. Pre-Mentoring

This phase prepares mentors and research groups before a student joins the team.

Planning

Designing an undergraduate research project should be intentional, realistic, and tightly aligned with both the mentor's expertise and the student's developmental level. Projects should be broken into clear, achievable milestones with defined skill-building objectives, allowing students to experience early success while gradually taking on more independence. The scope must match institutional resources, available time, and the student's preparation. Importantly, the project should be meaningful to the student, adaptable as skills grow, and structured to promote ownership, confidence, and sustained engagement in the research process.[1]

Some resources to help with this process:

Recruitment

Potential mentees may be recruited from structured and unstructured programs. Such programs may include honor societies, diverse interest groups, and clubs. Potential mentees may also be selected from classes that are taught by mentors. Mentees can be recruited by way of recommendation from another faculty member.[1]

Whether you pay students for research or have them earn credit, there are multiple recruitment pathways available at Purdue University — either as undergraduate research assistants, or via formal programs and for-credit courses.

Depending on whether funding or academic credit is offered, these represent distinct pillars of undergraduate research. Advertising new lab opportunities via research-roundtables (Research Roundtable - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University) or posting through specific program portals can really help. Here is a full list of all Purdue undergraduate research opportunities - Search Opportunities - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University

But before recruiting, the mentor should be aware of what exactly they want from their undergraduate mentees. OUR offers detailed information on position descriptions in Purdue Resources for Mentors - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University

Selection

Selection of undergraduate researchers should be structured, transparent, and aligned with both project needs and student readiness. Program-level guidance from Purdue HR (Staff Recruitment and Selection Hiring Manual) and career development resources through Purdue CCO support equitable interview and evaluation practices, while Office of Undergraduate Research provides mentoring-specific matching guidance. Beyond technical skills, the handbook emphasizes[1] selecting students based on curiosity, reliability, communication, and willingness to learn.

Interviews should probe motivation, time commitment, problem-solving approach, and comfort with ambiguity. When students show strong interest but lack preparation, mentors are encouraged to redirect them to preparatory research-readiness resources and future opportunities rather than excluding them outright.

2. Active Mentoring

The active mentoring phase is the core stage of the mentor–mentee relationship, where students engage directly in research or project work while receiving regular guidance, feedback, and skill development support from their mentors. This phase emphasizes structured progress, communication, ethical practice, and growing independence as students apply what they are learning in real research settings.[2] This is further subdivided into On-Boarding, Project Engagement, and Feedback & Evaluation.

On-Boarding / Trainings

The onboarding and training phase is the structured entry point into the mentoring relationship, where expectations, roles, and goals are clearly established and students receive foundational preparation for their work. This phase emphasizes safety, research ethics, communication norms, and baseline skill development to ensure students are equipped for successful engagement in the active mentoring phase.

Resources include: Available with OUR - Purdue Resources for Mentors - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University

  • Training checklists
  • Other on-boarding checklists like schedules, setting expectations, etc.
  • Templates for learning contract / expectation setting

Project Engagement

Project engagement is the core phase of mentoring in which students actively contribute to research or design projects through progressively independent technical and intellectual work. During this phase, mentors provide structured guidance while intentionally promoting autonomy, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. General mentoring guidelines from the Purdue Resources for Mentors - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University emphasize clear communication, regular check-ins, and well-defined expectations for progress and accountability. Effective project engagement also requires thoughtful mentoring relationships, appropriate feedback models, conflict-management strategies, and sustained motivation to ensure both learning and research outcomes are achieved.

Resources include:

Feedback & Evaluation

This phase focuses on assessing both the student’s growth and the overall effectiveness of the mentoring experience. At key milestones or at project completion, mentors provide formal feedback on technical performance, professional skills, and research outcomes, often paired with mentee self-evaluation. This phase may include revisiting learning contracts, evaluating research products, and assessing learning gains, confidence, skill development, and research interest. Importantly, evaluation is also used to improve the mentoring program itself, through mentee feedback on recruitment, onboarding, training materials, and mentoring practices, as well as structured mentor evaluations and focus groups.

Resources include:

3. Transition

The final phase supports continuity or graceful offboarding.

Continuation

When a mentoring relationship continues beyond the initial project, students may transition into advanced roles such as peer mentors, research leads, or returning team members. At Purdue, the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) supports this pathway by offering ILS 49500 – Research Peer Mentorship Training, a one-credit course that prepares undergraduates to mentor others by defining responsibilities, communication practices, and leadership expectations. Online Course Series - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University

Offboarding & Future Paths

All mentor–mentee partnerships formally conclude at graduation, and may end earlier by mutual agreement or changing circumstances. This phase emphasizes structured offboarding (data handover, documentation, code or material transfer, and access return), along with forward-looking support such as networking, letters of recommendation, authorship agreements, and guidance toward internships, REUs, graduate school, or professional portfolios. OUR gives a good general overview of these steps here - Purdue Resources for Mentors - Office of Undergraduate Research - Purdue University

References

  1. Benakli, N., Berger, M., Egues, A., Norouzi, H., Poirier, K., and Samaroo, D., A Handbook on Mentoring Students in Undergraduate Research: Proven Strategies for Success, 2nd ed., City University of New York, New York, NY, 2024.
  2. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM: Summary of a Workshop, National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2019.