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Lilit, second year Combined Honours student, studying Business Computer Science at Aston.
Having found out about peer mentoring, I was really keen on doing peer mentoring myself, mentoring
other first year students and helping them get used to the university life,
helping them with study skills, socialising and improving
the skills that I found really difficult.
And looking back at my first year, I think now if I find had have had a peer,,, a mentor
it would've been a lot easier for myself to get used to university life.
The fact that both me and my mentee were living off the campus helped
me to understand her voice and her issues
with socializing. Looking back at my first year, socialising was a big issue so I could help her or introduce her to the...
what the Student guild offers students at Aston University and
it was really helpful for herself as well to find friends at the guild, as well.
One of the major issues for my mentee was to get used to the formal academic writing and organizing themselves
so...I've used the Learning Development Centre at Aston University myself so i was able to
direct her to the Learning Development Centre
and also print out useful early leaflets for herself to use in
order to ease the process of the academic writing and learning skills.
Looking back at my first year, I think one of my major problems was time-management.
The university environment is really different from the college environment where you do your A levels
so time-management was a major issue for myself and I was able to help my mentee to organise her time
but not concentrating too much on learning, as well as socializing,
making the most out of your time at the university, enjoying the whole experience.
Another issue that I was able to help her with was preparing for the exam. She was very much concerned about
how the exam structure the university is... whether she was required
to purchase any extra books, do any extra reading, so I was able to talk to her
about the exams, that extra reading does help
and provide her with reading lists, books she can get from the library, not necessarily purchasing them.
She wasn't aware that she could reserve a book online
she kept going to the library and wasn't able to get the book from the library, so
I went with her and showed her how to reserve books online
in the library, so she could get the books she was...because the exam time it's really
difficult to find a book at the library because all the other students are preparing for the exams.
Looking back at the experience, I think it was just a fantastic year
that I was able to give something back to the university
and help other students. So I would definitely recommend it to everyone.
You're not really giving up a lot - it's only 30 minutes. We've done, with my mentee,
you organise it, 30 minutes per week. And it was invaluable both for myself and my mentee.
Because it's been such a positive experience, my mentee has
already emailed me and asked for my help with the placement search,
the process of finding a placement. I'm going to be on placement myself next year
but I'm definitely going to continue with the peer mentoring because I think
it's an invaluable experience, both for the mentees and the mentors.