Role of mentoring in the professional development of students

Relevance. In relation to social challenges, the higher school is faced with the task of improving mentoring system, which will contribute to the formation of a comprehensively developed personality and a competitive specialist. Currently, the state has specified general guidelines for mentoring work with students, which significantly influences the processes students' adaptation to the university environment, promotes the accumulation of professional skills, etc. Aim. To analyze the role of mentoring in the professional development of a personality. Methods. P. Bourdieu's structuralist‐constructivist approach, which allows linking objective social structures and the potential of the university environment, with the subjective actions of participants in educational process through the concepts of habitus and types of capital. The adapted diagnostics of V.V. Sinyavsky, V.A. Fedoroshin was applied. It determines the level of communicative and organizational inclinations of representatives of the digital generation. Results. The survey conducted among first‐year students confirmed the need to develop a mentoring system in higher education and identified the directions for which students would like to have an accompanying person. The authors have analyzed the forms of interaction between students and a mentor, among which mentoring is preferable. It is when a mentor shares his personal and professional experience with young people in solving a problem situation. Conclusions. All types of capital (symbolic, cultural, social, economic), according to the concept of P. Bourdieu, contribute to the formation of a competitive specialist. Moreover, their peculiarity is that they are interconnected and there is a possibility of increasing one type of capital at the expense of another. As a result, it is important for students to find the most appropriate ways to acquire and convert capital. Due to this, the role, forms, tools and methods of work of a mentor with representatives of the digital generation are updated.