CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSION
4.4. Facilitating Factors to Career Development
4.4.2. The Role of Mentors in Facilitating Career Development
Some participants acknowledged the role of mentors in their career development as crucial.
These mentors provided relevant information and helped them with networking.
Extract 12 Participant F:
There is one lady who is my mentor, Professor [mentions her name], she would en- courage me when things seemed this is aha too far fetched. Because I was aware that this would be a long, long road. So she encouraged me when she realised that I think I was in my third year already with [mentions the name of the university]. When she learnt that I was doing this and this is what I wanted, she was there to support . . . and encourage me when I felt discouraged. In fact, to come to think about it now she even facilitated me applying at the university that selected me. Because she told me that the closing date is soon. ‘You should apply’ and she personally took my, my ap- plication there. I was lucky to be selected.
Extract 13 Participant B:
But I remember discussing it with my mom who was studying at the time and she knew a lady who was pursuing a career in psychology and who was a former nurse and she made an appointment for me to go and talk with this lady you know.
Another participant also narrated her experience, highlighting the role of Black lecturers in psychology departments as having been significant to her career development, as shown in Extract 14.
Extract 14 Participant J:
I think that this doesn’t just apply to me. But just in general other, other Black stu- dents, the support of, of, of, the Black lecturers it is so crucial oh my God. Cause you know, you know cause I think to myself sometime if there weren’t Black lecturers in that department a lot of us would have quitted a long time ago. So think they, they, the Black lecturrs in the department play a huge role motivating us. Cause even some- times when you are feeling down they will tell you don’t listen to this you know you are not on the course because you are Black, you are on the course because you are smart just work hard you know, ignore everything else and you will be fine you know.
And when you see other Black psychologists you know working as academics you know it encourages and you realise there is ‘nothing wrong with me’. My Blackness is not my weakness you know I’m just a person in this profession let me just do what I’m supposed to, that is another influence of the motivation of the Black lecturers.
Some participants described how friends were an important support system in their career development journeys as the next extracts illustrate.
Extract 15 Participant B:
When I started with my university degree I had quite good friends that we were more or less pursuing you know the same interests and they are all psychologists now two of my friends, yeah.
Participant E expressed similar views:
Extract 16 Participant E:
I also had support of my best friend that I met at [mentions the campus name]. She studied psychology with me and is now a successful psychologist.
Another participant narrated how she developed trust in God during her career development journey.
Extract 17 Participant I:
You don’t have many people to support you. If they decide to support you, they will support you at a distance and you do whatever you want to do with your own efforts, with your own mind, that [is] when I developed to trust God at that particular mo- ment regardless because my family was in [mentions the place] and I was in [men- tions another place].
The importance of mentors and role models as career development facilitating factors has been discussed in detail in the literature review. In the above extracts, the participants identi- fied mentors and role models as facilitating factors to their career development. They high- lighted factors such as networking, provision of information, encouragement of students to pursue their studies and the presence of Black lecturers in psychology departments as strong messages that race is not a barrier to their career development. Support received from peers is also highlighted as important, as is belief in God. Participant B highlighted her mother’s in- terest in her career choice. This is supported by Otto’s (2000) argument that most women look at their mothers for career planning. The importance of networking and provision of in- formation is supported by Ismail and Rasdi’s (2007) findings that highlighted the significance of networking for women.
Gibson (2006) argues that setting up mentoring support systems for women promises to en- hance women’s career development within academic institutions. This is highlighted in the above extracts. It is also consistent with Kador and Lewis’ (2007) finding that mentors are crucial for the success of African American doctoral students.
Peer support, especially from those who are pursuing similar career paths, is crucial to women’s career development success. This finding is supported by the literature as noted ear- lier in (Chapter 2). Similarly, it is also consistent with Richie et al.’s (1997) findings.
For Participant I, a relationship with God was a good support system. This finding is sup- ported by Duffy and Blustein’s (2005) assertions that an individual’s attachment to a higher power may provide similar benefits as attachments to other people. It is also consistent with Richie et al.’ (1997) findings that women often rely on God to overcome tremendous chal- lenges.