National Central University Specialized Mentoring Programs

Our faculty adviser knows about all of the association's activities and offers suggestions at the right moments. When an event carries more risk, the adviser talks it through with us in detail; the adviser also reaches out to discuss event content and budgets, offers help, and strongly supports us in running all kinds of activities.

Our mentor arranged for us to work with the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation on an advocacy project for facial equality. With a tight preparation schedule and the exacting demands of working across organisations, the process was honestly full of challenges and pressure. But it was precisely through intensive communication and learning to share the work that we learned to pace ourselves, handle the unexpected, and manage the details of collaborating with an outside non-profit. This demanding, hands-on course showed us why facial equality matters, and how much expertise and patience it takes to advance a public issue — solid learning that was hard going first and rewarding after.

It was great. I learned a lot of genuinely practical things and picked up plenty of new knowledge, and I even made lots of new friends. For me this talk wasn't just about gaining knowledge — it was also a great way to build connections! Many thanks to the organisers for putting on such a rich and meaningful talk. I got so much out of it!

Through my time on the dance team our teacher has been a constant presence. Beyond teaching technique, she has stood with us through every practice and every competition. There are inevitably times in rehearsal when things don't go well — when everyone is off form, or we keep falling short of what she is looking for, and the mood drops. But she never simply scolds us. She patiently shows us where the problem lies, then works through it with us. I often help her lead the team's practice too, which lets me feel how hard it is to lead a team day in, day out. Many things look simple, but only when you actually do them do you find how much patience they take — and she is always willing to spend the time getting every detail right with us.

Somewhere along the way I realised that what dance gives me is not only the thrill of being on stage. From one rehearsal after another to finishing a competition together, I learned how to talk to my teammates, and learned that even when I'm exhausted I should still think of the team. As captain I don't always handle things well, but she always gives me the chance to try, and offers advice when I don't know what to do. Looking back, what I've really gained is a group of people to work hard alongside, and a precious memory. Thank you for staying with us and trusting us — you taught me more than how to dance; over that time I slowly became someone more responsible, more willing to give to the team.

Our mentor set out a range of public issues for us to explore, including food and agricultural education and new immigrants. Working in groups taught me a lot about handling relationships and managing a team, and I also gained a deeper understanding of the state of mother-tongue education in Taiwan. Extending from my own field into cross-disciplinary learning strengthened my major and improved my communication and teamwork. We even had the chance to plan a science camp, learning to prepare lesson plans suited to primary school pupils so as to better meet the needs of those we serve.

This talk was really worthwhile for me. I'll be job hunting soon, so hearing this information about finding work was very useful — it adds to my soft skills for interviews and will help me put my ideas across better.

When I heard the university had a modern dance team, I had no background in dance at all, so I only meant to sit in on rehearsals and follow along as best I could. Being taken onto the team was not something I expected, and I count it a piece of real luck.

At first the pace felt very fast — we would move on to the next sequence before I had the last one — but I approached it in a relaxed way, so the charm and fun of dance still filled me. Carrying that feeling and love, I stayed on the team for two years. Over time I went from simply following the movements to trying to understand them — thinking about where the power comes from in the body and holding certain abstract images of motion in mind — and, unlike merely copying where the limbs go, that let me feel my own progress on solid ground. It comes from the many ways our teacher finds to make a movement make sense: guiding us to imagine extension through space, explaining how the source of a movement connects to its extremities, showing how breath ties into the rhythm of the music. And as she got to know us, she adjusted what she taught to each student's body and experience, so each of us could progress towards our own goals. In this kind of teaching and environment, if you take every rehearsal seriously and absorb what her words and demonstrations offer, you learn far more than dance.