Encourage your students to:

• Grow their confidence. Tell a student when they do something right. Show them how to correct errors when they do something wrong. Tell them stories of errors you have made. This builds confidence and trust, and students will be more likely to seek independence and responsibility (potentially their own project!).
• Present their work. Get students used to presenting. Start with lab meetings. Then move to OUR's undergraduate research festivals. Ideally, students will present at a local, regional, or national conference before graduation. Conferences of any type are impactful experiences for undergraduates, even if they don't know these are options. Check OUR Events for more opportunities.
• Explore career options. Many students learn about new career paths through research. Maybe they will go on to a PhD and continue research. Maybe they will go in a different direction entirely. Giving students opportunities to talk to others in their field and with you about potential careers will help them decide what to do after graduation and beyond.
• Apply for awards, grants, and scholarships. Encourage your student to apply for awards. Award applications, and learning how to talk about their accomplishments, help them realize just how amazing they are. These awards can then be used as examples of their accomplishments on their resumes/CVs.
• Get involved. Let undergraduates see every moving part of the work. Grant applications, writing (and re-writing) papers, developing experiments, testing new materials, looking up and trying out new methods. Keep students' minds actively engaged by letting them in on these processes.

Resources on Campus

OUR's Mentor/Mentee Agreement Form

OUR's Guide to Letters of Recommendation

Mentor@Iowa

Off-Campus Resources

Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research
Mentor Training and other resources. Specifically recommended pages: 

• Things to Consider as an Undergraduate Mentor - CIMER's guide to outlining expectations of researchers-in-training.
• CIMER's Mentor-Mentee Expectations Agreement (for Undergraduates)

National Mentoring Resources Network
Specific to biomedical sciences, but concepts applicable across fields.

Perspectives on Undergraduate Research and Mentoring
Multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed, online journal, focused scholarship about undergraduate research and mentoring. of such research.

The Science of Effective Mentoring in STEM
Podcasts, guides, and publications from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to help you be a better mentor.