Mentored Study

Mentors

Engage with an MBA student

Partner with a bright and motivated business school student to help them explore an area of career interest. Over the semester, you’ll receive fresh insights on issues that are important to you as they gain exposure to your business, collaborating with you to work on projects like market sizing analysis, marketing strategy, competitive analysis, due diligence or investment research.

Not only will you benefit from their perspective, but you’ll be providing an opportunity to align their career ambitions with their course work that they can’t get anywhere else.

Share your expertise

Your experience as a leader in your organization and industry positions you excellently as a mentor for MBA students who want an inside look at an industry or sector of interest. Your involvement allows them to niche down in their education in a unique and supportive setting.

What mentors say

“Matias has natural leadership ability.  He has a rare skill to see varying landscapes in the business climate, which makes him very, very capable of tackling complex business problems.  He is a terrific person and I am committed to supporting his professional journey.”

Jeff Frazier, Pryon

“Thank you for the opportunity to work with such a brilliant student! Melissa has made a significant impact on our company. She was able to accomplish tasks that historically would have taken Lulu many months, if not a year, to do in just a few weeks.”

Kathy Hensgen, Lulu.com

How it works

Let our office know you’re interested in mentoring a Fuqua student by emailing us at msp@fuqua.duke.edu

Our office curates a list of mentors who are interested in engaging with MBA students and publishes this list during active enrollment periods. If you have connected with our program office and been invited to apply, your details will be available to students during the active enrollment period.

Students interested in working with you will reach out via email to schedule a time to discuss a potential project. If you mutually decide to proceed with the project, your student mentee will enroll in Mentored Study, formalizing the engagement.

Mentoring your student

You and your mentee will work together to craft a mutually beneficial project work scope, then check in weekly. Your student will dedicate about 6 hours per week to your project over the course of a 12-week fall or spring semester, or 20 hours per week over a 4-week summer term. Your project will culminate in a final deliverable(s), and your student will receive course credit towards their graduation requirement upon completion.

FAQ

No, your student mentee will be earning 3 credit hours for their project with you and cannot be compensated. There are no application or participation fees, due to the collaborative and mutually beneficial design of the program.

While our program is designed for local firms less than an hour drive from campus, and we highly recommend that the student conducts work on-site at your office (following Duke’s COVID-19 safety guidelines), you can mentor a student remotely as long as the project meets the student’s goals.