CyberMentor
CyberMentor is Germany's largest online mentoring program for female students. It is aimed at girls in grades 5 to 13 with an interest in STEM subjects. Das Programm ist rundenbasiert konzipiert. Jede Runde dauert ein Jahr.
Be mentored by a personal STEM mentor
Based on their STEM interests, each student is assigned a suitable mentor from the STEM field. As a STEM role model, the mentor provides insights into her daily work, offers information about STEM subjects, and initiates joint STEM projects. Younger female students thus have the opportunity to get to know the STEM field early on from an extracurricular perspective. Older female students receive helpful advice for choosing a course of study and career.
Get to know the diversity of the STEM field in your own community
Mentoring takes place via a secure online platform using email, (video) chat, and a forum. Two mentoring pairs with similar STEM interests form a community. Here, they can work on STEM projects together and exchange ideas about their favorite STEM topics. The students (mentees) thus experience the STEM field on the platform in a way that goes beyond one-on-one support from a personal mentor.
Structuring the mentoring year
To structure the mentoring program, the CyberMentor year is divided into four STEM phases:
The first phase, "STEM daily", serves to build the relationship between student and mentor and strengthens the communities' group cohesion. Together with the community, they can get to the bottom of exciting everyday STEM questions. "STEM active" encourages communities to work on projects such as "Why does highlighter erase ink?" or "How do I use a pickle to charge my smartphone?". "STEM together" provides an opportunity to look beyond one's own STEM horizons: Here, different communities can join forces to carry out joint interdisciplinary projects. In the fourth phase, "STEM review", participants reflect on their mentoring year and look back on the best and most educational moments of their time at CyberMentor.
The CyberMentor platform offers mentees a "STEM world" where they can explore numerous learning opportunities – individually, with their mentor, or within the community. They will find a comprehensive collection of STEM topics and projects, the results of which they can publish in our platform's internal magazine, "CyberNews." Mentors moderate regular themed chats on interesting STEM questions such as "Apprenticeship or university studies – which is right for me?" or "What does a programmer's daily work look like?" and answer the mentees' questions. In our internship and events forum, students can learn about the diverse opportunities offered by our partners and sponsors. They also have access to handbooks for the mentoring year and user guides for various platform functions.
