Why mentor an undergrad?
We choose to become faculty members at the University of Minnesota because of strong personal commitments to research or creative activity and to teaching. Many of us are highly motivated to mentor graduate and professional students, but why mentor undergraduate students?
• Minnesota undergraduates are bright, inquisitive and academically highly capable. Our best undergraduates are equal to the best undergraduates at any university in the United States or the world. They come to Minnesota for a variety of reasons—including academic excellence, family tradition, convenience, personal relationships, in-state tuition, parental pressure, close to home.
• Minnesota undergraduates generally are highly motivated and have a strong work ethic. Labor force participation in Minnesota and nearby states is high, in part because adolescents often work. Many Minnesota undergraduates have jobs unrelated to their academic interests in order to pay for college. Students tend to highly value jobs that both pay money and teach them something, so they are highly motivated to do well in a meaning research position on campus.
• Undergraduate students are cheap, generally $9 to $12 per hour with no fringe benefits. Programs such as the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) let you "try out" an undergraduate researcher at no cost to your budget. Faculty members with limited research support can often accomplish more using undergraduate student researchers than with other available options.
• Mentoring undergraduates is both productive and fun! These students can teach you all kinds of useful things that you may not know—how to text on your mobile phone; how to organize your Facebook page; how to download music for your iPod. More importantly, their questions and comments about your research or creative activity project may stimulate new and unexpected perspectives and ideas. A fresh view, unrehearsed by many years of study, may be just the breakthrough catalyst that your project needs.