Peer Mentoring
About the Program
What is Mentoring?
Mentoring happens when someone with more life experience forms a supportive, coaching relationship with a less experienced person. The goal of mentoring is to encourage students to develop effective strategies and find a balance between school demands and other interests.
How Will a Mentor Help Me?
A Mentor can assist with some or all of the following:
- Support and University “Survival Skills”: helping through stressful times, listening and helping Mentees problem-solve life/school challenges, learning about campus activities and services, etc.
- Time Management Skills: Set up a realistic schedule, priority setting, streamlining reading lists, identifying time wasters, etc.
- Writing Skills: Strategies for essay or lab report writing; how to narrow essay topics, form a proper thesis statement, develop outlines, edit for grammar and sentence structure, etc.
- Exam Preparation Skills: Strategies for writing multiple choice, problem solving and/or essay exams; reviewing old exams, predicting exam questions, setting up practice sessions, pacing your study activities and dealing with exam anxiety.
- Seeing the ‘Big Picture’: Help you see how sections of the course connect to each other, especially if one’s Mentor is in the same program. Mentors may also help you with course selection, decisions about dropping/switching courses and/or programs.
- Stress Management: Identifying typical student stressors, learning how to physically relax, and how to balance academic demands and extracurricular activities (such as clubs and volunteer work). Mentors model their own strategies and skills in these areas.
- Motivation and Concentration: Identifying strategies for sustaining motivation and ways to deal with distractors that interfere with your ability to focus.
- Healthy Lifestyle Assessment: Mentors are trained to help you identify lifestyle changes you may be interested in making.
- Resources: Connecting you with resources for all of the above.
More Information:
Feel free to browse the rest of the website, or contact the Peer Mentoring Program Director, Liz Racine, at liz.racine@queensu.ca.