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A mentor can help you in a number of ways.
For me personally, I'd come into a really competitive program within the Math Faculty
and I was quite concerned. And I'd heard these terrible rumours that your marks would fall,
you'd have no social life, the world would end,
and my mentor Katie really helped reassure me that that wasn't the case,
that you could maintain the school-life balance and achieve the academic success.
As a mentor I was able to help my mentees by listening to them
and then referring them to the appropriate resource on campus.
I was also able to give advice on what electives to take based on personal experience.
And finally I had a lot of fun playing sports with my mentees.
A lot of the most valuable stuff I learned from the mentors was during the end of workshops
when we would have an open question time where you could connect more one on one with mentors
and I learned about specific things to get involved in on campus
as well as how to connect with profs which was super important for me
as it led to me working with a prof during the summer as well as being inspired to go
into a masters degree.
I think the number one thing that a mentor can provide is the fact
that they've already gone through the same experiences that you'll be facing,
so they can be reassuring and give you guidance in a way that
family members, professors, even counselors can not.
Katie connected with us over social networking sites like Facebook.
She also texted us so we were able to stay connected.
A mentor can be an ear to listen and a shoulder to lean on.
I think a mentor is compassionate, really honest, reassuring, willing and able to listen.
The advice I would give to new students would be to check out
whatever mentorship program is available to them,
because I found that the workshops I attended where very useful to me in first year.
A peer mentor is an approachable, friendly resource who can help you with the social,
cultural, and academic aspects of university life.
There are over a dozen different peer mentorship programs on campus.
To find the one that's right for you, visit the Student Success Office website.