The University of Maine’s Honors College Mentor Program is a great initiative to help first-year students transition into the Honors College. It is a program tailored to support students in their first year of college, and it is essential for academic success.
Building that mentor-mentee relationship with an experienced upperclassman who will guide you through a critical academic transition can be beneficial, and is a resource that should be taken advantage of. As a second-year Honors student, I wish I had this resource to utilize back in my first year to help balance my academics and extracurricular activities.
According to The Honors College, “The Honors College Mentors are current Honors students from different colleges and majors. Mentors help incoming first-year students adjust to the Honors College and the University of Maine academic experience.” Although it is currently in its trial run, its initiation is a step towards providing students who need or want that extra academic support.
Help with time management, exam preparation, study strategies, note-taking strategies and finding campus resources can ease the struggles and worries of the mentee. It is also comforting to know that your mentor might have dealt with similar struggles as you in their first year, to which they can advise you how to solve those problems.
For mentors, it is a great way to build leadership skills, increase personal networks, contribute to community building and enhance the Honors College experience.
A mentor and mentee that come from a diverse background of majors, minors, concentrations and even extracurricular involvement can also offer exposure to new learning perspectives, creative problem-solving approaches and greater academic adaptability.
Many incoming students may think that being in the Honors Program means handling the rigorous coursework, their hobbies and/or jobs all on their own. I used to think the same, but that is not the case. The peer support and connection that this program provides can make the difference between success and failure in a student’s academic journey.
All it takes is being able to commit 15 to 30 minutes of your time once each month of the semester for a mentoring session, which is very doable.
As of now, this program has been heavily advertised on their website, on all of their social media accounts and in their weekly emails in order to gain both mentor and mentee applications, and it is working.
According to The Honors College, “Over the past 85+ years, Honors has continuously provided an environment in which top students can take advantage of the resources of a great research university while providing a rigorous and unified approach to the liberal arts core.”
Despite the fact that The Honors College has been around for a very long time, it is nice to know that they continue to uphold their values of providing new resources to support students in their academic journey.