I cannot get over just how quickly the first semester of my last year of college went by!

The 13th week of class, we helped the students correct their academic plans.  We had questions flying at us from every direction, and it reminded me of how I stalked my peer mentors during that class period my freshmen year.  Who would have though that writing some letters and numbers on lines would be so hard? But, it was.

The most common mistake was certainly not counting their survey class in their “additional ASC courses” section.  We were sure to remind them to do so.  Aside from that, it was often I saw transfer or AP credit being used improperly or crossing courses that cannot be crossed.  They were all easy fixes, and we even helped them count upper division answers- no one really understood why honors classes cannot count towards the upper division hours, including myself.

Week 14 was the week in which students finally submitted their academic plans, and I am positive they could not be happier to get them off their hands.  We did not meet for class, and that extra two hours of sleep I got was HEAVENLY.  Highly recommended.  

All that is left for me to do is meet with Joanna to turn in my timesheet, which I intend to do during early December, to receive internship credit. Wa-hoo!

Now that my peer mentor journey is coming to a close, it feels so real that I am leaving my undergraduate career in a very short while.  I am so glad that I took the opportunity to impact freshmen in a positive way this semester.  The guidance my peer mentors provided me with at times was second to none.  Hopefully, I had that same effect on students and am not just leading myself to believe that.  That’d be pretty embarrassing.

Regardless, I put my best foot forward everyday I walked into the classroom or an event I hosted.  I was genuinely interested in the mental well-being of the students as they left their safe space for the first time ever.

If given the opportunity again, I would take it in a second.

THANK YOU FOR KEEPING UP WITH MY LENGTHLY POSTS AND GIVING ME THE CHANCE TO BE A PEER MENTOR THIS YEAR.

Signing off,

Arlia “the great peer mentor” Duarte

WOW.

I cannot believe that my final fall semester is almost over!  It has gone by faster than any semester has yet, and thats exactly what I did not want to happen.

Week 11 was fairly uneventful.  Graduating seniors were (apparently) excused from that week’s training.  I say “apparently” because I actually forgot about training, as I had by capstone paper due.  But, it was a good week for me to forget, since I would not have had to be there anyways! The class for week 11 was focused on undergraduate research opportunities.  Being that there are a vast number of psychology students in my section, they were very attentive and interested in the presentation.

Once the representative from the office of undergraduate research finished her presentation, the class was divided into five groups.  We discussed various situations of academic misconduct.  These were real situations that had happened to Honors students and one was perpetrated by Joanna’s college roommate.  They were intrigued by the fact that some of the OBVIOUS violations of student conduct were carried out by students who are thought to be higher-achieving than many others.   On the other hand, however, students were also shocked by the fact that actions they perceived as harmless could get them sent to COAM.  I believe that this activity opened their eyes to the fact that they must be cognizant when they decide to help other students, as there is a right and wrong way to do so.  To this day, I remember lessons I learned from this class session my freshmen year.  Some of the situations have definitely guided decisions I have made over the course of my career at Ohio State.

Week 12 was so exciting for me.  On Tuesday, I found out that I have been accepted into Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law, my first choice!  A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders, and I celebrated with a Short North dinner.  The next day, class was about stress management options on campus and various other services offered by the Wellness Center in Younkin Success Center.

This week in training, we addressed the common mistakes made on academic plans that we will see in class during Week 13. As this can be used as a reference for honors contracts, I took this very seriously.  I am ready to take on Week 13!