Becoming a Peer Mentor-Week 1

What first struck me about the reading was actually on the first page. I am very active at college and am trying to balance all of my classes, work, and the many volunteer clubs and organizations that I help with. It does worry me that maybe I have taken on too much. I think that if I can keep organized and ask for help when I need it, I can stay caught up and accomplish all that I have set out to do. I keep an up-to-date Google calendar that I print off and use for an agenda for homework in classes. I think that this is a good tip that I can show my students so they can also stay organized and get involved.

The chapter said to think of people who have been mentors to me. I guess I have many mentors. My sister Barbara has always been a large one for me because she has a family with three children, a husband who helps out around the house and makes her laugh, a great job that she got with the degree she achieved here at Iowa State, and wakes up every morning at 5 am to work out. She does so much that I can only hope to do if I could get the motivation. I would take her motivation and use it to encourage new students to achieve what they want to. I would use it to stay up that extra hour to finish an assignment, wake up a little early to get some healthy exercise in, or to always put on a smile to show that I am there and approachable for the incoming students. I think that that approachability is important when meeting someone new.

The areas that I know I need to improve on for becoming a Hixson Peer mentor is communicating and self confidence. A speaker that I watched last fall gave a speech on how self confidence is a large part of interviewing and getting a job. I think that my speech skill in communication is where I need to work and I feel that that skill can improve with more self confidence. My hope is to practice and do well in front of the students so that I can use my improvements to get a job in the future. Peer mentoring is great for the students and a great time to improve wherever you need to.

I liked the guessing name game we did in class. It really made me think of what I do not know about Ames and Iowa State campus. The person’s name that was taped to my back was Ann Campbell, the Mayor of Ames, Iowa. I feel like I should be more familiar with her role as well as the other that I did not know. (If anyone is commenting on this, can you tell who you were?) I think that knowing this information can show the spirit I have for coming to this college and can help me spread the spirit of Iowa State University to the new students. I hope to do more name-games in class to learn the other mentors names. I am not very good at names so I would not mind the extra practice. It is my goal to learn all of the names of my students within the first week. I feel that if I could do this, the students will feel like they are important to me, and can ask me questions. If anyone has tips on learning names, let me know.

Until next week…keep up in your classes, now is not the time to get behind!