How students can find and approach a mentor with small, specific, low-pressure asks.
A mentor does not need to be a formal, officially assigned relationship, and most valuable mentorship in practice starts informally, with someone a few steps ahead of you on a path you are interested in, who is willing to occasionally share advice, rather than a grand, permanent arrangement declared upfront.
To find one, look first among people who are genuinely accessible to you, seniors, professors, alumni of your own college, or people in your target field you can reach on LinkedIn, rather than aiming only for someone very senior or well known, since accessible, relevant people are far more realistic to reach and often more useful day to day than a distant, famous figure would be. When you approach someone, make a specific, small, low-pressure ask rather than a vague please be my mentor, such as requesting one piece of advice on a specific decision you are facing, or a short call about how they navigated their own career path, since specific, bounded asks are far easier for a busy person to say yes to.
To keep the relationship going naturally, follow up afterward with a genuine thank you, and later with an honest update on what you actually did with their advice, since this closes the loop and makes people considerably more willing to help again. Ask occasional specific questions over time rather than frequent open-ended requests, and let the relationship deepen gradually through a series of real exchanges rather than declaring it a formal mentorship from day one. Being a good mentee, someone who genuinely acts on the advice given rather than just collecting it, matters as much as finding the right person.
Example: A student messaged a senior with one specific question about choosing a specialisation, followed up months later to share what they had eventually decided and to thank them again, and ended up in an ongoing informal mentor relationship without ever having formally asked for one.
One practical tip: Skip the formal will you mentor me question, and instead ask for one specific, small thing, a piece of advice, a short call, or an answer to a real decision you are facing right now, since specific asks get said yes to far more often than vague ones.