Peer-to-peer program, with more than 1,000 participants, helps first-year students adjust
Transitioning from high school to college can be stressful, said University of Delaware biology major Simran Kaur, looking back at her experience as a first-year student.
“You have to learn how to study for college in a different way than you might have studied in high school, and there’s a lot of new things to navigate,” she said. Kaur made it through her first year successfully and now, as a sophomore, is doing well academically and is active in a national honor fraternity and other campus activities. She hopes to pursue a career in medicine and studies six days a week.
But, as busy as she is, Kaur didn’t hesitate to volunteer for the new, peer-based Mentor Collective program housed in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“I don’t want people to feel like something is wrong with them if they are feeling stressed about school,” she said. “Hopefully, I can give them the resources and information they need to calm their nerves.”
Kaur mentors two first-year students, including one, Sy'Rai Jacobs, who also is majoring in biology.
“Simran has been great,” said Jacobs. “She said to me, ‘My job is to make sure your experience is going as well as possible.’”
Kaur and Jacobs didn’t meet in-person until a Mentor Collective launch event in mid-September, but they had been paired in mid-summer and regularly connected via text and Zoom during August. When the semester started, the texting increased.
“Some things I couldn’t answer; for example, Sy'Rai had questions about her residence hall and I’m a commuter,” Kaur said. “But I would find the resources she needed, whether that was Residence Life, scholarship info or financial aid.”
As of late October, the Mentor Collective had 761 mentees and 288 mentors. (Some energetic mentors like Kaur are working with more than one student.) The Mentor Collective framework is based on research that shows that college students highly value peer-to-peer advice.
Kaur turns to Mentor Collective staffers when she needs help, using a text-based messaging system that flags items of high importance. Mentor Collective staffers then work in partnership with CAS leadership to connect students with the appropriate resources on campus. “I like that the Mentor Collective reaches out based on the feedback I give them on how my mentees are doing,” said Kaur. “It has helped both me and my mentees.”
The collective is just one facet of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Student Success Center, which takes a holistic look at student success. The center has two units — Advising and Academic Services, and Co-Curricular Coaching. An Advising and Academic Services team serves students on the main campus in Newark; another team works with associate degree students on the Wilmington, Dover, and Georgetown campuses. Co-Curricular Coaching works to connect students with internships and research opportunities as well as mentoring.
Spearheading the new mentoring initiative is Latoya Watson, assistant dean of Co-Curricular Coaching. Watson’s passion for connecting students with mentoring opportunities is readily apparent, in part because she recognizes how beneficial mentoring was to her own career success. She identified key mentors throughout her academic career (she earned three degrees from UD). As she told the students at the launch event, “To this day, I reach out to my mentors for advice. I know they will listen, offer me advice, and provide perspective on whatever it is I’m dealing with.”
“Our goal is to help our students build social and cultural capital so that they can navigate their new campus environment effectively,” said Watson. There’s a lot that a first-year student needs to learn. Students need to figure out how many hours they should study, how (and why) to drop a class, how to manage homesickness and make new friends, and even what “office hours” are. “A new student might not want to bother a professor during their office hours, not realizing that is the very best time to get their questions answered,” Watson said.
At the launch event, John A. Pelesko, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said that the Mentor Collective is just one more way that the college is delivering on the promise of a UD education. “It’s our job to deliver the resources you need so that you can run with it and be a success,” he said.
He ticked off the many benefits of mentoring, including a feeling of belonging, help navigating the ins and outs of college, and laying the groundwork for future career success.
Matt Nugnes, a criminal justice major from Airmont, New York, is glad that his mentor, Julia Rogers, also is a criminal justice major. “During the summer, Julia helped me a lot with my class schedule,” said Nugnes. “I had considered taking some 300-level courses this semester but she encouraged me to wait on those.”
Rogers plans to attend law school; Nugnes hopes to go into law enforcement like his father, who is a member of the New York City Police Department. If they are as fortunate as Watson has been, they may find themselves turning to each other for advice — or just to say hello — long into the future.