My ScholarX Journey
Hello everyone, I’m Michelle Fernando, a final-year computer science undergraduate at the University of Colombo School of Computing.
ScholarX is a 6-month program aimed at providing mentoring support to a selected group of undergraduate students, and it is offered by the Sustainable Education Foundation, Sri Lanka. I joined this program in May 2022. I thought of telling you about my experiences with the ScholaX program.
How did I get to know about ScholarX?
I got to know about the ScholarX program for the first time in 2021 through a LinkedIn post. At first glance, it gave me the impression that I’m not capable of this program, and I thought this program was more suited for those who have higher GPA levels. I was a bit discouraged. Therefore, I missed a precious chance to be selected as a mentee in the 2021 batch. But in this year’s intake, I asked one of my batchmates about his ScholarX journey with his mentor. After hearing about his journey, he inspired me to apply for the program in 2022. So I thought this is a good chance to build a better version of myself. So I went through all the details they have mentioned on their official website and read some articles written by past mentees.
Application Process:
It’s very simple, you just need to fill out the online application form and submit it. ScholarX’s official website gives us the names of this year’s registered mentors along with their specializations and their interest areas. We could select one mentor of our preference. And if they are available, we may have the chance to continue the mentorship program with them. We need to give a brief description of ourselves and mention why we chose the mentor specifically. The ScholarX team considers this provided description to find the most suitable mentor and mentee pairs. So I should appreciate the ScholarX team for assigning me to the mentor I selected, who is a very supportive mentor anyone could ever have. He is Mr. Gihan J. Mendis, a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University, USA.
Life with the mentor and the team:
A total of three mentees were assigned to my mentor. Navin Pemarathna, a final-year undergraduate at IIT who is a former intern at WSO2, and Vaseekaran Varatharajah, an IIT and UOC graduate. They were both technophiles. We had the chance to have biweekly one-on-one meetings with our mentor and biweekly group meetings as well. Group meetings led us to hear about each other’s journeys in university projects, how we overcame issues we faced, and much more valuable stuff. Our mentor shared his experiences on his Ph.D. path and also gave us some tips on how to get ready for higher education at a foreign university. Mr. Gihan is a Ph.D. candidate, and he is more into the academic and research side. So we had the chance to have informative sessions regarding academic writing, reading publications, CV creation, time management, and many more. After all these sessions, we had time for small chit-chats as well. Navin and Vaseekaran gave me suggestions on my research, which helped me improve my progress.
One-on-one meetings helped me interact with the mentor personally and get guidance. He helped me select my research topic and supported me a lot to start my research. He was interested in deep neural network-related research, so he helped me choose tools that were suitable for my research. I had a great time sharing experiences and thoughts with my mentor, which led me to explore new technologies and concepts.
The ScholarX program also assisted me in honing my soft skills. Since we met weekly or biweekly, it gave me a chance to talk with experts and share my thoughts. All of us wanted to know about each other’s opinions, so no one was there to laugh at or think that was not a good idea. I felt free to talk with them, so my communication skills improved. Sometimes we shared our project-related work and progress by doing presentations. I learned a lot from these presentations as well. Additionally, I learned how to schedule and attend meetings on time like a professional without anyone reminding me weekly or biweekly.
My feedback:
I am forever grateful to whoever started this mentoring program, and I appreciate the work carried out by the Sustainable Education Foundation so far. This is a program that an undergraduate should experience at least once in their undergraduate life. It will guide us on the right path when we are unsure of what to do next or when there is no one to help us find our way. The mentor can be anyone because all of the mentors registered for this program are very qualified and have years of experience in their field. So they know how they felt during their undergraduate time and how they overcame the difficulties. I take this as a chance to thank my mentor, Mr. Gihan J. Mendis, for mentoring me for the past six months and guiding me toward my goals. I really enjoyed the mentoring sessions and learned a lot. I would say we four were not only mentor-mentees but also good friends at the end of the day. Participating in ScholarX helped me build up my network as well as my personality.
