Roles and Relationships-Week 5

This week was all about our role as a peer mentor and the relationship we hold with the mentees. Nick and Kelly did a good job at showing us our roles as peer mentors. It is important to know what is expected of us as mentors. We are to be trusted friend to the new students, someone that they can rely on. We are to be a connecting link, someone who can help students be part of the college community. I can use my experiences with student government and my many other extracurriculars to get the students more involved. I will be a learning coach and I will show the new students various study tips and note taking skills that can help them adjust to the differences of college from high school. I will be a student advocate, someone support the students and refer them to help if they need it. As a past peer mentor, I know how important this one can be. I had a student go through a very rough time their first semester. The only way Heather and I found out about this is through our 1 on 1’s. I really encourage other peer mentors to understand this role. It is really important. The last role is that I will be a peer leader. The book described this by saying we should demonstrate our successes. This is why I went to the interviewing break our session at ISLE. I want to be a reliable source to the mentees with careers. I need to step up in my career for this. As for my leadership activities on campus, I think that the students will be inspired by the things I have done and I will encourage them to get involved as well. I will go with them if I am able and show them tips and other resources I may have.

The other part of this week was the relationships we hold with the mentees. How are we going to act in the different situations that we are put in. Joey and I focused on three ground roles that we are expected to keep as peer mentors. The first was commitment. As peer mentors the students look up to us as a trusted friend so we must follow through with what we say we are going to do. The second was confidentiality, although the skit did not go as planned, it still made a good point about us being student advocates and learning coaches. On the confidentiality side, we are supposed to keep what students tell us in private to ourselves unless a safety factor in involved. They tell us things in private for a reason and we should not judge them or tell others what they say. The last one we focused on in class was the boundaries between us as mentors and the mentees. This one was my favorite! It was fun to see Greg pretend to be a girl. The point was made though. We need to recognize the situation when a line might be crossed. It is important to know what you are going to do if something were to come up. The other ground rules that were in the book honesty (if you expect the students to be honest with you, you must be honest with them, they are going though the same thing you just went through, don’t pretend that you haven’t), and expectations (know your students, help them do their best without making them feel like they have to live up to your expectations. They have their own.) I think the skits are a great way to have some fun, learn something, and be interactive. I think they went over well. The last thing that was focused on is why we are peer mentors. Students will respond better to your efforts if they understand your motives. A lot of people recognized that they are peer mentors partially because they reacted well to their peer mentors. It was great to see the cycle and realize the relationships that we had with others will affect the relationships we have in the future. I am a peer mentor because I loved Michael and Leah and they really helped me my first semester here. I think it is really important to give back and helping people transition is a great way to do it.

Ok I wrote way too much this week and I really wanted to write more. I guess I’ll see you all on Tuesday!