{"id":15400,"date":"2012-03-07T12:44:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T17:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=15400"},"modified":"2012-03-07T12:44:12","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T17:44:12","slug":"mentorship-program-links-students-with-older-peers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2012\/03\/mentorship-program-links-students-with-older-peers\/","title":{"rendered":"Mentorship program links students with older peers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_15399\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15399\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15399 \" title=\"Rachel Mervin and Amanda Milburn look at a notebook while sitting on a bench in the Schmon Tower lobby\" src=\"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/mentorshipplusstudents.jpg\" alt=\"Rachel Mervin, left, and Amanda Milburn hang out on a bench in the Schmon Tower lobby. The two are paired this year through Mentorship Plus.\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-15399\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachel Mervin, left, and Amanda Milburn hang out on a bench in the Schmon Tower lobby. The two are paired this year through Mentorship Plus.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There were little things Rachel Mervin didn\u2019t know when she started at Brock this year.<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t know about the council that represented students in her program. She hadn\u2019t accumulated exam or study tips. Then the first-year Kinesiology student signed up for the <a href=\"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/career-services\/students-alumni\/mentorship-plus\" target=\"_blank\">Mentorship Plus program<\/a>, and third-year Kinesiology student Amanda Milburn was the answer to it all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe transition to university from high school was really different,\u201d Mervin said. \u201cI needed to know little things, like how to make my way around Mackenzie Chown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Milburn and Mervin are among the hundreds of students signed up for Mentorship Plus, a program that matches senior students with first-year ones, as well as current students with alumni. The goal is to ease the transition from high school to university and answer questions only a peer would know.<\/p>\n<p>Mervin, an 18-year-old Toronto native, learned about the program through a Career Services table at a fair and an email that didn\u2019t grab her attention. She saw it advertised again on the my.brocku.ca portal and applied.<\/p>\n<p>She and Milburn talk about academic matters such as exams and assignments, as well as their lives in general. The learning process is mutual, said Milburn, a 21-year-old Stoney Creek native.<\/p>\n<p>Milburn encouraged Mervin, for example, to get involved in the PEKN (Physical Education and Kinesiology) council. Now the two attend weekly meetings together. They meet about once a week to talk about other subjects \u2013 stress, nerves, academia \u2013 and their mutual goal, which is currently physiotherapy.<\/p>\n<p>The program has been enough of a benefit that Mervin and Milburn both recommend it to their friends.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce I got matched up with Amanda, I thought \u2018This is cool. This program does what it says it\u2019s going to do,\u2019\u201d Mervin said. \u201cI told my housemates at Quarry View and now they all have mentors too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is a need for senior student mentors for next year, said program co-ordinator Adam Hogan. They hope to recruit enough mentors to be matched with 400 first-year students. This year, about 217 senior mentors were signed up for Mentorship Plus, and about 360 first-year students were on the list for a mentor. Visit <a href=\"https:\/\/mentormatch.brocku.ca\" target=\"_blank\">mentormatch.brocku.ca<\/a> to register.<\/p>\n<p>The program will be celebrated at a \u201csuccess social\u201d on March 21 at Pond Inlet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More senior students are needed for Mentorship Plus, a program offered through Career Services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[174],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15400"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15594,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15400\/revisions\/15594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}