Now 19 and about to enter her second year at UCL, Alanis buzzed with confidence and said: “Without my mentor, I would never have felt smart or confident enough to apply. In my early years, I was very shy — when they asked me to read in class, I would refuse for fear of looking stupid — and I hid myself away. My mentor saw the potential in me that I couldn’t see in myself — and he helped me raise my ambitions and sense of what was possible.”