According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the verb ‘reflect’ means ‘to think carefully, especially about possibilities and opinions.’
On the evening of Thursday 16 October at the ETH Pavillion in Zürich, the 2025/26 SEET study support programme cohort met to reflect on their respective mentor-mentee partnerships, almost five months since the kick-off event in late May. A few also joined online due to work and study commitments.
Within a few minutes, the room was quickly filled with the sound of conversation and laughter, thanks to the icebreaker session organised by Agatha and Julia from SEET’s Program Team. Mentees, mentors and SEET volunteers were grouped together and asked to choose one person who they would most like to invite to dinner or hear speak publicly.
The names of politicians, sportspeople, artists and academics were all put forward. One participant explained that in her group, there was a common thread: all names discussed were united by their individual abilities to foster peace during different stages of modern history. A topic that particularly resonated with many of the mentees’ personal experiences as refugees.
The main component of the evening saw the mentees and mentors break out into their pairings where over the course of forty-five minutes, they were asked to review their original goals.
Did they consider themselves to still be on track, or did they need to adjust their targets? Could their partnerships be further improved, and if so, how? Is there anything that they should collectively do differently, to ensure that come Spring 2026, each mentee has the best chance to successfully achieve their personal goals?
One mentor candidly explained how enriching but also challenging his personal experience had been to date, noting how initial language barriers had dissolved, thus enhancing the progress of his own mentee relationship.
Assimilating to a new country is a complex cultural and social process. As well as learning a new language and customs, some mentees can initially feel isolated when arriving in Switzerland, especially if they arrive without other family members. For one mentee who originally hails from Afghanistan, SEET’s funding support enabled her to purchase an iPad. This not only helped with her studying goals but also facilitated her ability to stay in contact with acquaintances she has met from different parts of Switzerland through her studies, as well as fellow members of the Afghan diaspora.
As the evening progressed towards its conclusion, Agatha and Julia reminded the participants that their participation in SEET’s programme can be extended to a second or third year, pending them meeting specific criteria related to their studies.
Nobel Prize winning ETH alumni Albert Einstein once said: “Try not to become a man of success; rather try to become a man of value.”
Spending time with male and female participants alike, it was clear that the mentors are taking the concept of ‘being of value’ to heart in their partnerships, whilst many of the mentees spoke passionately about wanting to ‘give back’ to the country that offered them a new home.
One mentor and mentee pairing from the same country – who were friends many years ago in their homeland – were re-united in May this year through SEET. “We say the world is round, so we’ll always find each other again” one said with a big smile on his face, before promising to share their story with us soon for a new blog post. The wrap-up event for this year’s participants will also take place at the ETH Alumni Pavillion at the end of March 2026. We’ll be there once again to hear about mentee achievements and lessons learned by mentors, from their respective experiences of the programme.
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