The Many Faces of a Peer Mentor

               From this week's discussion in class, I was able to get a better understanding of what I would be doing as a peer mentor. At the very surface, I will be the bridge between the students and the Hixson staff because as we all know, it can be a bit intimidating to tell our issues to adults. My main goal is to be able to help them through their issues by being there to listen and give advice that stems from my personal experiences. However, I will never be afraid to admit that I don't know everything and will use my knowledge to point them in the direction of someone or a resource on campus that can help them. I am expecting that as we progress throughout this semester in UST311 that I will be more informed on how to deal with many more situations. This week's introductory activity of role playing as peer mentors and students was a great way to start exploring different, yet common, situations.

                 By reading the first two chapters in Students Helping Students, I was able to see just how many different peer mentoring opportunities were on campus and how I had already interacted with many without ever really realizing it. From community advisers in the dorms to supplemental instruction leaders and tutors, I have dealt with my fair share of peer mentors and luckily for me, most of them have been great. I have reflected back on some of them and want to use some of their techniques with my mentees. Examples include wanting to encourage building a friendship with my mentees like my CA did right of the bat by always taking the time to talk whenever we saw each other or being accessible and allowing my mentees to e-mail me if they have an urgent conflict that they want resolved. On the flip side, I have seen some traits that I do not want to be. A former group tutor of mine would allow people to be rude to her and she would kind of just laugh it off. I think it is standard of the Hixson program to respect everyone and always come with as positive of an attitude as possible. We want to make a great environment for everyone!

                  Also from the chapters, I was able to get a bigger picture of all the types of issues that are common of first year students. Although I had some of my own, I didn't have near as many as what is described in the book so it was good to get a more solid idea of all the different issues like identity crises or alcoholism. I look forward to breaking down each of these issues more in depth as we continue to read on in the book.

               Finally, I would like to mention that I was fortunate enough to attend my first Dance Marathon this past weekend. Not only was it a life-changing experience for me, but it was also another chance for me to interact with other peer mentors. I had great morale captains, who used leading by example to keep our energy up all day long no matter how tired we were. Additionally, I happened to know one of the guys who was on the executive committee. All year long I had seen his posts on social media about stuff he was doing for DM and I loved seeing how great his hard work paid off for a cause that obviously means so much to him. This dedication and passion is something that I hope to find in myself for the Hixson program as it is crucial to the success of peer mentors across campus.

Nicole the Peer Mentor

        My name is Nicole Paulsen. I am a 2012 Hixson Scholar from Scott County. I was born and raised in Durant, Iowa, and wouldn't trade my supportive hometown for any other! I am the first of my family to attend Iowa State as my oldest sister, Laura, graduated from Iowa and my other older sister, Jenny, currently attends Iowa. Fortunately, I have a ten year old brother that I can hopefully persuade to being a Cyclone by the time he graduates high school! My parents have been nothing, but supportive and proud of me as I continue my education here at Iowa State, even if I will never get them to wear cardinal and gold! I am currently majoring in dietetics and have known that I wanted to have a career in nutrition and wellness since the beginning of high school. I'm so glad we have such a great dietetics program here at Iowa State and am very excited for what the future has in store for my career.
        The time that I am at my best is when I am with friends and family. I'm more carefree and fun because I forget about my every day stressors like school and work and just have a good time. I have a big extended family and when we all get together, it can be loud and chaotic, but such a good time. I wish I could see them more often, but some of them live as far away as Russia so twice a year is about as often as we all get together. Fortunately, I have all my friends in Ames and back home that I can hang out with too. It's funny that the people who I am closest to now were complete strangers just a short year and a half ago. They've been so great at listening to me when I need to vent or just being silly with to forget about how much homework we have waiting for us.
        If I could do nothing but read books, not textbooks, for the rest of my life, I wouldn't have a problem. I was always the book worm of the family and have had my mom tell me to stop more than once. To me, it's just so calming and a nice getaway. So if anyone has a book suggestion for me, let me know!
         Learning about the human body is the most fascinating thing in the world to me. I think this most likely stemmed from having a great biology and anatomy teacher in high school. I also loved the professor I had for Biol 255 last semester. I'm an avid Grey's Anatomy watcher and I love when I know what they are talking about when they are diagnosing a patient. I would love to be a doctor, but I have a huge fear of needles so working as a dietitian will be as close as I get to the medical field.
         As far as being a peer mentor goes, I'm not quite sure what my specific goals are yet because I'm not totally sure what to expect. So for now, I would say my main goal is just learn and learn a lot. I've never been in a situation quite like this before so I'm going to do my best to learn from the instructors of the course as well as my peers. I want to be a great peer mentor so that I am useful to the freshmen next year. Hopefully, I will have a much clearer goal in the next few weeks and will be able to update my blog with it!
         Finally, the role that I wish to play for the freshmen students next fall is to be someone fun and encouraging as well as useful to their learning about the college experience. I want them to know that I am there for them if they need to talk or give advice if I am able. I feel like I am a great person for this because I have had a true college experience. I came to Iowa State with only two other classmates, who I rarely saw my freshman year, so I had to make a whole new group of friends. I moved two and a half hours away from home and lived in a small dorm with a stranger. I've been through difficult classes that I didn't exactly enjoy, but managed to get myself to study every day for them. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I have had my own struggles but have overcame them because I had a great support system and I want to be a part of my students support system!