Asserts that a teaching assistantship combined with mentoring can help advance a graduate student from learner to colleague, and that electronic mail opens new ways for mentoring graduate students. Discusses emails between a graduate student and faculty mentor on separate campuses that illustrate various characteristics of the stages of teacher…

Reports the perspectives of two female graduate students who completed a peer mentoring program as part of their training as graduate teaching assistants. The metaphors of a "journey" and a "road map" are used to integrate the perspectives of a former peer mentor and graduate teaching assistant dyad. (DB)