1. Purpose

We feel that a mentoring program is needed for our fellow incoming students. Most of the new students need extra attention during the transition in the first year of graduate studies in UCLA-CS department. Besides, graduate studies is not solely about scholarship achievement, but also about friendship, personal enrichment, and career development for our life. Therefore, one of our goals is to create a friendly and supportive environment within our departmental community that is not bounded by our own research interests/activities. Such environment would allow freedom to students to exchange ideas on research problems, academic issues, career planning, relationship between research adviser and students, and attitudes towards graduate life in general. More importantly, we emphases that such environment shall be maintained and extended by us (UCLA-CS students) throughout our professional life. Hopefully, your mentor will become your life-time buddy.

2. Organization

The organization chart of UCLA-CS Buddy Mentoring Program is shown in the diagram below.

• Chief Mentor Coordinator (CMC)
  CMC is responsible for overseeing all the coordinations and operations of the activities organized by the program committee.
  Basic duties are
  • calling for program committe meetings,
  • anticipating and ensuring the task coordinators will complete their duties on time,
  • providing assistances to task coordinators if necessary.

• Vice Mentor Coordinator (VMC)
  The main responsibility of VMC is to assist CMC, especially when the CMC is unable to fullfil his/her duty.

• Supportive Mentors (Buddies)
  Buddies are usually task coordinators. We coin every activity is a task. Usually, buddy will take part in his/her favor activity.
  

• Graduate Students Affair Advisors
  Verra Morgan
  Susanna Reyn
  

The beginning of our informal mentor program dates back to 1985-89 when Dr. Scott Spetka was still a gradaute student of Computer Science Department at UCLA. At that time, Scott realized that we needed a form of ice-breaker to bridge the gap between the professors and students in a casual basis. Therefore, he was one of the pioneers to help orgainze the picnic in our department. It set up the basis of communications between students and faculties.

From late 80s to early 90s, a student-welfare oriented person named Dorab continued Scott's vision. Dr. Dorab Patel devoted a lot of time in setting up an introductory course of UNIX for new incoming students and gave advises to students on graduate-life related issues in casual basis. However, due to lack of organization and manpower, his work could not be carried on successfully until another graduate student joined UCLA-CS in the late 80s.

In early 90s, Dr. Greg Frazier successed Dr. Patel's place and continued to put the mentor program to work given the experience learnt from the past. He formally created a mentor committee which had at least 10 student volunteers to guide our fellow CS students. His leadership bought us a new wave of mentorship in our department at that time.

Dr. Alexis Weiland picked up Greg's wavefront to lead the mentor program in 91-92. Along with him, Verra Morgan , our graduate students affair officer, Dr. Peter Homeier and Dr. Leana Golubchik were also actively involved in the mentor program. Activities such as tea time in CS-archive, departmental picnic and personal consultations were held by these frontiers.

NOW (1998), it is still a big mystery but it is the time that you can be part of the history! Join us and equip yourself to become a mentor of the next wave!

NB: We apologize for not being able to cite all the people who were part of the mentor program in the past due to lack of information available to the aurthor.

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