Mentor's Seminar

2026/2027

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

3

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

Department of Sociology

Course type:

Compulsory course

When:

1 year, 1-4 module

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The mentor seminar is organized to help students formulate their own individual educational trajectory, determine the necessary educational outcomes, including the selection of topics for projects, internships, master's thesis, and elective courses. The mentor will help in choosing courses and determining topics for practical training elements, and will also work with student feedback on their experience in the program.

Learning Objectives

• Help students articulate a credible personal social purpose and connect it with the mission, learning outcomes, and opportunities of the program.
• Develop an innovation mindset grounded in curiosity, systems understanding, opportunity recognition, experimentation, and learning from evidence.
• Strengthen the ability to move from social concern to participatory problem framing and then to a testable social innovation or social-enterprise hypothesis.
• Cultivate entrepreneurial agency, creative confidence, resilience, responsible risk-taking, and the capacity to learn from incomplete or unsuccessful experiments.
• Support informed choices concerning HSE projects, electives, MagoLego courses, SatLab opportunities, internships, and thesis formats as elements of one impact-oriented trajectory.
• Develop the ability to assess coherence among social mission, stakeholder value, organizational and revenue logic, innovation, ethical responsibility, and intended impact.
• Build a supportive cohort culture and provide the educational program with structured feedback on the conditions that enable students to develop as social innovators and entrepreneurs.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Articulate a credible personal social purpose and periodically revise an educational and contribution trajectory aligned with the program's mission and outcomes.
• Assess development and innovation progress using evidence, feedback, failed or incomplete assumptions, mission-business-impact coherence, and revised priorities.
• Create and communicate an evidence-based Social Innovation Portfolio and Year 2 Impact Roadmap, transparently documenting sources, collaboration, experiments, and generative AI use.
• Identify and frame a social innovation opportunity using systems evidence, existing solutions, stakeholder perspectives, and explicit assumptions.
• Generate and test a proportionate social innovation hypothesis through inquiry, stakeholder engagement, prototyping, or another responsible experiment.
• Plan participation and co-creation in an inclusive, ethically responsible, and dignity-centered manner.
• Develop plausible project, professional, ecosystem, internship, master's thesis, or startup pathways based on social purpose, evidence, feasibility, ethics, and intended impact.

Course Contents

• Theme 1. Becoming a Social Innovator: Purpose, Dignity, and Entrepreneurial Agency
• Theme 2. Understanding the System Before Designing the Solution
• Theme 3. From Unmet Need to a Social Innovation Hypothesis
• Theme 4. Building an HSE Impact Pathway: Project, Team, Electives, and SatLab
• Theme 5. Co-Creating With Communities: Participation, Ethics, and Human Dignity
• Theme 6. Midyear Social Innovation Review: Evidence, Uncertainty, and Resilience
• Theme 7. Mission, Enterprise, and Impact: Building a Coherent Professional Identity
• Theme 8. Navigating the Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem: Partnerships and Internships
• Theme 9. From Project to Thesis or Startup: Impact Logic, Feasibility, and Responsible Scaling
• Theme 10. Social Innovation Portfolio and the Year 2 Impact Roadmap

Assessment Elements

• Social Innovation Portfolio Checkpoints (AE-1)
  Students prepare eight concise artifacts connected with authentic decisions in their development as social innovators: the Social-Purpose Statement and Learning Contract; Systems and Solutions-Landscape Map; Social Innovation Opportunity Brief; HSE Impact Pathway Map; Co-Creation Protocol; Personal Mission-Role-Impact Map and Social Enterprise Coherence Canvas; Ecosystem and Internship Contribution Brief; and Impact Thesis or Startup Concept Note. The best six artifacts are averaged. Most artifacts are limited to one or two pages and are designed for later reuse.
• Midyear Purpose, Innovation, and Resilience Review (AE-2)
  The student submits a 1,000-1,300-word analytical review comparing first-semester development with the initial Social-Purpose Statement, competency baseline, and Learning Contract. The review must use selected evidence; distinguish intention and activity from learning and contribution; explain what was learned from one failed, incomplete, or contradicted assumption; assess feedback and teamwork; and present a revised Learning and Contribution Contract for the second half of the year. Private disclosure is not required.
• Social Impact Pathway Package (AE-3)
  The student integrates the Personal Mission-Role-Impact Map, Social Enterprise Coherence Canvas, three professional impact pathways, Ecosystem and Internship Contribution Brief, and Impact Thesis or Startup Concept Note into one concise package. The package should demonstrate how social purpose, innovation, professional competence, organizational sustainability, stakeholder accountability, and intended impact reinforce or constrain one another. Recommended length: 1,800-2,300 words plus tables or visual materials.
• Final Social Innovation Portfolio and Year 2 Impact Roadmap (AE-4)
  The final assessment consists of a curated Social Innovation Portfolio, a 7-10 minute evidence-based presentation and impact narrative, responses to questions, and a Year 2 Impact Roadmap. The student must explain how their understanding of a social challenge, innovation opportunity, stakeholders, professional role, and impact pathway developed; what evidence is credible; what remains unresolved; what was learned from experimentation or setbacks; and how Year 2 connects project or venture development, internship, thesis, stakeholder engagement, and impact evidence.

Interim Assessment

• 2026/2027 2nd module
  0.25 × Social Innovation Portfolio Checkpoints + 0.20 × Midyear Purpose, Innovation, and Resilience Review + 0.25 × Social Impact Pathway Package + 0.30 × Final Social Innovation Portfolio and Year 2 Impact Roadmap.
• 2026/2027 4th module
  0.25 × Social Innovation Portfolio Checkpoints + 0.20 × Midyear Purpose, Innovation, and Resilience Review + 0.25 × Social Impact Pathway Package + 0.30 × Final Social Innovation Portfolio and Year 2 Impact Roadmap.

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Bridging horizons. Exploring social entrepreneurship in Malaysia and Russia, , 2025

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Brown, T. (2009). Change by design : how design thinking can transforms organizations and inspires innovation / Tim Brown with Barry Katz. New York: Harper Collins. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edswao&AN=edswao.308063775

Authors

• Gaete Sepulveda Magdalena Alekhandra