Abstract
Business schools are often criticised for theory heave curriculum. Experiential and practice-based learning has been increasingly called for by students, alumni and employers. The authors of this developmental paper developed a postgraduate level elective course to address this need. As part of the learning design, the authors introduced two types of mentors- industry and same-course alumni mentors- into the course and then conducted qualitative research to explore the impacts of the two alumni mentors on students’ learning. Graduating students were interviewed for their perceptions of the effectiveness of the two types of mentors. The preliminary results from the initial pilot phase show that both industry mentors and same-course alumni mentors have the ability to support students’ learning, however, they seem to play different roles at different times in students’ learning lifecycle. This developmental paper aims to capture the current analysis conducted from the pilot phase.