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My name's Christiana Ogumedede. I'm a final year Pharmacy student.
I did... I decided to do peer mentoring because I can remember being a first year
and being in a position where I had no clue as how to go about a lot of things
and I made some mistakes and
coming into final year and hearing about peer mentoring, I wanted to be in a position
where I can help someone else and so they don't actually get to make the mistakes...
the same mistakes that I made so I just wanted to be in a position to help people and
make a difference in people's lives, which I think is really important to me, as a person.
When I signed up for peer mentoring, I signed up for... I didn't mind having two mentees, so obviously I got two!
Which - initially, at the beginning - was a bit of a handful. It was quite
challenging because I'd never been in a position where I was responsible for two people
and myself, included, so
it was a bit of hard work, having to organise, plan - you know. I'm in final year, I had my project, I had so many deadlines, I had...
I had so many other things going on in my life personally and then to have that was a
bit challenging, but then I thought... one or two meetings, I got used to it and it helped me
improve my planning and organization, so I mean, it was an amazing experience...
Being a mentor... I mean, the greatest thing is - the greatest achievement
is being able to make a difference in someone's life and being able to help them.
I mean, I know that with the assistance and the help I give them, they are making progress
but then - I think - the icing on the cake for me was when one of my peer mentees
was actually able to secure a summer placement with Boots, which I did in my third year
and my second year but I felt like the help that I gave her - and coming
from her as well - she was so happy that
she was actually able to get a placement , which was an
amazing achievement for me, Because I never actually thought that I could make such a
great impact on someone's life. Never actually thought that.
But it's just fantastic for me so....yeah.
When you sign up for peer mentoring, when you have people you're responsible for,
it gives you the opportunity to build and learn and
develop these skills which you can actually use in professional life, so besides
being able to put it in your CV and say "look, OK, I've been a mentor and I've been responsible for other people" -
well you can always re-use it
in your working life and, for fourth year Pharmacy students, you're going to have that portfolio
that you're going to have to do, where you going to have to give. It's not just a thing where you say
"oh I did this", you need your evidence, you need so many things to back up what you've done
If you sign up for peer mentoring, that's an auto...that's a great example
that you can actually use for your portfolio and you can't actually go wrong with that.