3 minute read
First Year Mentor Program
Easing the worries and fears of college Life
Story by Dalondo Moultrie
Starting the first year of college can be a daunting endeavor. There are so many worries, pitfalls to avoid, and dangers to navigate, especially when choosing to leave home and live on a university campus. Things certainly can be exacerbated in such times as these with education changing as almost everyone tries to figure out how to get through what they need to get through while remaining socially distant and following protective guidelines.
According to Samira Lopez, TLU’s director of First Year and Campus programs, incoming freshmen at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin have an advantage. The department’s peer mentor program offers newbies a lot in the way of helping them feel comfortable their first year on campus.
“The one thing my office provides is that one-on-one interaction with a student leader who has already experienced it and is living it,” Lopez said. “It can be a scary process.”
The mentoring program hires 20 returning students each year to serve as leaders. A competitive field of prospects is trimmed down to the best of the best who are chosen each year to help less experienced students.
Mentors receive intense training and link up with mentees from Bulldog Orientation throughout the first year. They provide guidance, as does Lopez.
She offers new students some valuable advice to help them transition comfortably in the new world in which they embark at the private college.
“The biggest thing I tell first-year students is it’s okay to feel fear and it’s okay to be nervous,” Lopez said. “You actually want to feel that because it challenges you and makes you face the unknown.
“Everyone else is feeling that same fear and nervousness,” she continued. “That’s a small comfort.”
The entire Peer Mentor Student Leader staff and Samira Lopez, director of first year and campus programs, gather during Bulldog Orientation preparing to open the doors of Jackson Auditorium and host Texas Lutheran University’s matriculation ceremony for all first-year students, parents and families.
Her office also oversees the first generation program, which provides additional assistance for students who are the firsts in their families to attend college. These students often don’t have advantages of parents with first-hand knowledge about the ins and outs of the university setting so thy might need a little extra guidance in certain areas.
During Texas Lutheran University’s matriculation ceremony, members of the Peer Mentor Student Leader staff welcome a family walking into Jackson Auditorium.
Many colleges around the country enroll about 20% of their students as first-generation degree pursuers. At TLU, Lopez said, the number is upwards of 50%.
“More than half of my campus is first-gen,” she said. “That gives us an exciting, new perspective. We are giving and opening doors to students who want this intimate, private college education. A lot of them find comfort in small institutions.”
Third-year TLU student Jordan James Mendoza commutes to TLU and is a first-generation college student. He was drawn to the local campus because of its proximity to his family, the intimate setting provided and more. Mendoza believes in the program and, as a mentor, helps younger students ease into the campus setting and achieve their goals.
“It’s definitely a whole new world when you experience the college campus for what it really is,” Mendoza said. “It can be daunting for anybody if they don’t know the location of a building or don’t know who to talk to.”
TLU welcomes first-year students with open arms. Programs at the school point new learners toward clubs to join, student groups to participate in and extra-curricular activities to enjoy, he said. Each person who finds his or her place to fit in can help himself or herself feel incalculably more comfortable in college.
It all helped him avoid some of the difficulties other first-gen and firstyear students at other colleges face.
Last year’s first-year peer mentors, including Jordan James Mendoza (top left) pose for a photo on stairs inside one of the buildings on Texas Lutheran University’s campus.
“I feel like I avoided a lot of pitfalls,” Mendoza said. “TLU is a really awesome college. I feel like they really directed me where I needed to go so I would avoid some trials. I felt like I didn’t have to go through the unnecessary processes.”
It’s not all roses and rainbows, though, Lopez said. Peer mentors don’t know it all. Instructors and professors don’t know it all. They’re all human.
But that’s another of the charm’s enjoyed at Texas Lutheran University.
