Mentorship at Boston Bridge
We offer various mentorship opportunities, including virtual shadowing, informational interviews, and frequent contact mentoring.
Whether you're seeking guidance or insights, our mentors are here to help.
Mentor Madness
March at Boston Bridge means Mentor Madness! This is how it works:
Take a look at the Mentor List on our website. We have many wonderful mentors across a range of disciplines.
Identify some mentors you feel could contribute to your interests and career goals. Email Boston Bridge at mentorship@bostonbridge.org with the names of your first, second and third choices of mentors.
Our mentorship chair will make the mentor-mentee match trying to give you your first choice. Matches are made on a first-come first-served basis and only one mentee is awarded to each mentor per year. An e-introduction to both of you will follow, with all the information needed to get started and each person’s contact information.
The mentee will then contact the mentor to arrange a meeting. We suggest an in-person meeting, but if that’s not possible virtual works too.
After an initial meeting, you and your mentor can decide how to proceed. Perhaps the one informational interview was helpful or maybe you want to arrange recurring meetings. Sustaining a healthy mentoring relationship does require a commitment to ongoing interaction between the mentor and mentee, but the frequency and mode of contact is up to the participants.
A Boston Bridge Mentorship Success Story
Philippe Saad, Principal at DiMella Shaffer Architects, has been a loyal mentor for Boston Bridge since its inception in 2012, and a frequent speaker at our professional development meetings. His special interest is designing housing for older adults and he recently saw come to fruition his design for an LGBTQ housing facility in Boston.
In August, 2021 Philippe and Melissa Berlin were paired in the mentoring program. Due to COVID they met virtually and discussed their mutual interest in senior and multi-generational space, and Melissa’s special interest in urban planning. Philippe connected her to a friend of his at Ryerson University in Toronto, and to other studios and courses on the topic.
In January, 2022 Melissa contacted Philippe again to share the news that she had a job at Age-Friendly Boston, and to ask him to continue their professional relationship. In a twist of fate, Melissa’s boss knew Philippe and was thrilled that Melissa had that connection. It seems her new organization wanted to develop greater design expertise in order to give stronger input to the age-friendly perspective of city planning projects.
Philippe and Melissa will now be meeting in a professional capacity as well as in a successful mentor-mentee relationship!