I had the privilege of being a part of the initial PSY 200 peer mentor program. My student mentees and I met 1:1 one time during the semester unless they wanted to meet more often. I had a few students who set up a second and third meeting. We also had a mandatory group meeting. These were requirements in order for them to receive credit for the peer mentor portion of the course. Because my mentorship program was more specifically psychology related, all my students are in the same major. We were able to focus the meetings on where they are at in their psychology journey. As a graduating psychology major I was able to guide them toward research experiences, grad school opportunities, and time management related to the psychology major.
I really enjoyed my time as a mentor in the psychology 200 class. Through this course and internship, I created content for workshops for the group events that we had with our mentees. In addition, managing 55 student mentees was great practice for moving forward teaching at a university. As I take my next step into graduate school I hope to continue mentoring and teaching. I plan on remaining in experimental psychology in academia which incorporates skills I learned from this experience. I will likely be required to teach regularly. As a graduate student in a research lab, I will be working with many undergraduates research assistants, both to train and guide in their psychology journey. Each student mentee that I met with taught me a little more about being an effective mentor.
I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity, support, and guidance from this class and internship and will carry it forward into my next steps.