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During Connect Week, students are doing something from 8
o'clock in the morning until well into the evenings.
The Connect Program is a peer, academic, mentoring program
for multicultural, first
generation, low-income students.
The program is very targeted for the students because those
are the ones that we found at UNH need a little
bit of extra support.
A lot of times, the students are maybe coming from
environments that are very different from the one at UNH,
whether that's demographically different, academically
different, or just socially different.
Our choices then, are the gymnosperms--
This year, we changed the program a little bit to make
it even more academically focused.
Students will be taking one of six mini-courses, for students
to sort of explore their majors,
explore their colleges.
It was really interesting what we did.
We did the watershed watch.
And my group collected sediment, soil, and water to
see if there was sign of bacteria still left in the
sediment on the bottom.
I was part of the tree group.
Nice core.
And what we did was we collected tree core samples to
see if there was anything that happened that would cause the
trees to have shorter growth rings.
I'm a wildlife major, so I'll be doing
things similar to that.
Pretty soon, actually, I have a field dendrology class,
which is the study of trees.
It was great to have the hands-on experience.
I mean, not all classes are exciting and so engaging like
that, but it was definitely good to get a feel of what's
it like to work on an experiment and to work
directly with the professor like that.
I thought that was really important to show that aspect
of academics.
There are 12 peer mentors who will be working with the
first-year students to help acquaint them to other
resources that we have here at UNH.
I'm very big on giving back to the
communities who give to me.
So I felt like where I just gained so much from Connect.
I was like I really need to be part of this and give that
because it was just such a good experience.
The Connect Program gave me a sense of family that I could
always rely on, no matter where I am on campus.
Connect is the only pre-orientation program that
lasts throughout the entire academic year.
It carries on.
I, mean us as mentors keep in touch with our mentees, every
week, if not every day, on how they're doing academically,
how they're doing socially, how they're doing with their
roommates, how they're doing with finding their classrooms.
And we have Re-Connect events
periodically during the semester.
I think it was a great experience, and I recommend it
to incoming freshmen that actually want to go back and
be a mentor because it was that fun.
This is such a good way to get to college started.
I feel so much more, like, at ease.
You meet a ton of people.
You meet some professors.
I would honestly really recommend it.
It's a great program, and I'm actually
really happy I did it.
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