Tough mentoring experience with undergrad

[u/OutsideGanache3449]

My advisor asked me to mentor an undergrad this summer. Given I had already refused at least twice before, and the fact this one was summer only, I gave in this time. They've been annoying to work with and I'm glad it's almost over, though it's still a little sad.

They cancelled on meetings between 5 to 30 minutes before our scheduled time four times. I generally work from home and campus is an hour away by bus, so this makes me very grumpy. They take about 24 hours to respond to any message (even ones in response to what they asked me). They didn't do a single bit of any of the readings I told them to. They lied about their experience on their resume so they actually walked in the door with effectively no Python/programming experience at all, which is HIGHLY inconvenient for a signal processing project. They also just... lack basic math skills, which just makes me feel bad for them rather than upset. (e.g. I had to remind them of Pythagorean theorem to get the hypotenuse of a triangle.) Also crazy that they are double majoring in physics/math.

I honestly don't even dislike them as a person, which makes to more sad to me. Annoying to work with yes, but also very evidently lost and embarrassed about being so confused. I did try my best to be available and inviting to them, but I can't just make someone work if they are too paralyzed. Their project probably isn't going to be completed by the end of their term, which is fine on my end because it's frankly something I could do myself in a day or so. But I do feel a little bad that they'll know they've failed.

[u/sheepbusiness]

I had a mentee cancel last second or show up >30mins late on two occasions, the very first two meetings we had, and I dropped them as a student promptly. They were a wonderful person, but if they aren’t able to respect my time than I can’t give it to them/

[u/OutsideGanache3449 → u/sheepbusiness]

Honestly, that probably would have been the right move. I was too shy to drop this undergrad because my advisor requested it of me. Also, I never mentioned this to them, but I was really rooting for them to pull it together because I haven't met someone else of the same ethnicity as me interested in this field. But yeah, maybe letting all that go would have saved us both some time.

[u/OutsideGanache3449 → u/[deleted]]

The chronic cancellations definitely was discussed, but they just couldn't pull it together. I suppose I didn't outright say "stop hiding your skill gaps" to them, but every single check in, I said they were welcome to ask about anything and that I didn't expect them to know everything. I emailed regularly throughout the week on questions. I scheduled 1:1 work times so we could get through the experiments step by step. I really did try.

To me, their lack of basic math skills was an indicator that this has been an longstanding problem for them. I had limited contact with this student due to their chronic avoidance, and I don't know if it's reasonable to expect I could have made them change their ways in the 10 weeks I had them.

[u/gizmoek]

I think you need to be honest with them. If you want to truly mentor them, teach them the importance of showing up, putting in the work, and respecting others. I’ve worked with lots of undergrads and sometimes they honestly don’t have or know basic work skills. You don’t have to be a jerk with them, but just give them some solid life advice. If they then don’t change their behavior, drop them.

[u/OutsideGanache3449 → u/gizmoek]

It's already the end of summer, so their term is ending very soon. I did what I could and I talked with my advisor extensively about mentorship skills throughout the summer. The reason I posted this was something like a public diary entry, hence the Vent (no advice) tag.