Using VineUp to Match Students with Alumni Industry Mentors in Engineering: A Pilot Study

Abstract

This pilot study evaluated users’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the VineUp platform to match mentors from a large United States manufacturing firm and mechanical engineering students in an honors program at a small private university. Four mentor/mentee pairs were surveyed and interviewed at the end of the nine-month program. Although the VineUp platform was effective in matching mentor/mentee pairs, participants felt the process could have been done with an alternate method that was more cost effective.