Getting the Ball Rolling, My First Meeting with IE Mentor

This semester got started pretty well. I have many things on my plate including the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Pre-Grad Internship at UT for undergrads. My mentor, Juan Portillo, and I met for the first time last Thursday to discuss our plans for my exploration of graduate school.

Juan is a Master's student in the Women's and Gender Studies program. He's writing his thesis with a Chicana feminist lens on how Latinas use media to develop of their identity while they are in college. He also just recently got accepted into the PHD program in the department of Sociology here at UT, which is really cool. Well, that's my mentor and he's very knowledgeable and conscious about race, gender, and class issues. I was introduced to him by my advisor Jackie after I reached out for help when I was having a mini-crisis about what to do in terms of my future career. She connected us via email and he agreed to mentor me for this program.

I think we're a great match and I'm glad I asked my advisor for help on this. I knew I wanted to do something with women's studies and media in my future but I didn't know how to bring those two interests together. After Juan and I talked about the mentoring thing, I instantly got a clearer idea on how to solve my dilemma.

So, Juan and I decided on a plan of action at our meeting. I'm going to a couple of his classes, he'll answer my questions, we might go to a conference, we'll go over logistical things about grad school, and talk about what is best for me.

Things I'll be exploring during my internship:

• My options (Graduate school, Art Institute, work force)
• Graduate school programs.
• See what grad school would be like.
• How would I fund graduate school.
• What to do until I decide to go to grad school.
• What to do after grad school.