On April 28, 2025, an interactive mentoring seminar-training for fourth-year students of the Journalism major was held at the Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University.

The event was held within the framework of the implementation of the international Erasmus+ PROMENT project (“Promoting professional education and active participation of students through the establishment of a comprehensive system of mentoring and tutoring in higher education institutions”) on the eve of the XXI International Conference “Olvia Forum – 2025”.

The goal of the training was to provide mentoring support to participants in the process of forming academic self-presentation, in particular during the preparation of abstracts for a scientific conference. In a friendly atmosphere, the students received practical advice on the structure, style, and logic of abstracts and discussed the requirements for academic writing.

The mentor at the event was Anna Solovyova, candidate of political sciences, associate professor of the Department of Journalism at Petro Mohyla National University of Kyiv, coordinator of the program “Gender Mentoring “Women in Science””.

The event program included a Q&A session, as well as individual speed-mentoring consultations, during which the participants had the opportunity to present their ideas and receive professional recommendations on improving their texts. As a result of the seminar, most of the students formed draft versions of the abstracts of their future reports.

Individual speed-mentoring consultations became one of the most interesting and dynamic parts of the seminar. The format was built on the principle of short personal sessions – each participant had 5 minutes to present a draft of their thesis or to outline an idea for future research. In response, the mentor provided professional comments on the structure, argumentation, logic of the presentation, potential issues, and the correspondence of the chosen topic to the academic profile of the conference.

The consultations allowed us to focus on the needs of a particular student and provide the most practical advice. This approach not only helped to increase the participants’ self-confidence, but also stimulated them to further improve their texts and develop their own academic style. As a result of the sessions, most of the participants made significant progress in preparing theses and took further steps towards forming a high-quality scientific product.

It should be noted that this event was a logical continuation of the mentoring initiative launched on April 21, 2025. It was then that the first interactive mentoring seminar-training “Women in Journalism. The Art of Writing Scientific Theses” was held at the Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University. The participants received basic knowledge of academic writing, the principles of constructing theses, and the importance of women’s presence in scientific media discourse. It was during this first stage that the foundation was laid for further individual work on their own theses, which was completed within the framework of the second stage – a consultation session in the speed-mentoring format. This approach ensured the sustainability of support and a focus on results.

The organizers express their gratitude to all participants for their activity and inspiration, as well as to the PROMENT project team for creating a space of opportunities for student self-realization and academic growth.