Summary of Mentorship Experience-Leadership Development

During the 2020-2021 school year, I became a mentor to first-year student Meranda Coleman. She is a psychology and criminology major at Ohio State and is from the town of Jackson, Ohio. Meranda fell in love with OSU during a summer program she did during high school and knew it was the college campus for her. We became a mentor and mentee pair in beginning the 2020 fall semester and quickly saw how much we had in common. Meranda and I are studying the same subjects, the only exception being that I am minoring in criminology rather than majoring. Furthermore, we also both love animals, especially dogs. I have a 11-pound Maltese and she is a part of an organization that trains service dogs for people with disabilities. We also have both considered a future career in the FBI once we were done with school. We have had some of the same professors and classes and, while we love time to ourselves, we also love exploring new activities. Although we have lots in common, we also have many differences as well. For example, as mentioned previously, Meranda is involved in different organizations than I am on campus, such as her service dog club. I am involved in music organizations on campus like my a cappella group, Sound of Science.

I am happy to say that I have noticed Meranda has grown a lot from first semester. She is clearly more comfortable with the OSU campus compared to when I first hung out with her in the fall. She is also more adjusted to her college classes and to her professors. She had concerns for how her classes she signed up for spring semester would go, but they went much better than expected. She gained a good relationship with her professors through their office hours in order to help her learn throughout the classes. Meranda is also very excited to start training with her future service dog in fall of 2021 and is also looking forward to creating more relationships with other students on campus. She did not want to go out to meet many people this year due to Coronavirus, but is ready to mingle next school year due to more people getting vaccinated.

Continuing, I also realized how much I grew as Meranda’s mentor. I wasn’t sure if I was going to bring any benefit to my mentee’s life and I was worried about not gaining a good bond with one another. Fortunately, even with my busy schedule, I was able to reach out to my mentee as much as possible throughout the year and have many good conversations with her. I gave Meranda advice on her classes, what material to study, best ways of taking notes, and how to create a detailed study guide. I was very pleased that she came to me for guidance because it showed she was comfortable enough with me to trust that I would help her education. I went from being unsure I would be a good mentor to feeling confident in my mentor abilities. Moreover, I learned that I love being a person someone else can look up to. I love helping a younger student feel more comfortable with their transition from high school to a college lifestyle. The mentorship program has also helped my leadership experience because it made me feel more prepared in future leadership opportunities. Once the spring 2021 semester ended, I was officially the president of my a cappella group on campus, Sound of Science. If it wasn’t for this ACES mentorship experience, I don’t know if I would be ready to lead a group of people to success.

Throughout the year, I definitely helped my mentee with socialization, mentoring, and orientation. As mentioned, I gave her advice on classes and on her professors. I wanted to make sure she had all of my tips and tricks that would lead her down a path of success for her college classes. In regards to socialization, I introduced her to my roommate, who is also an ACES mentor, and my roommate’s mentee. We hung out together as group twice throughout the year. Lastly, when Meranda and I got together, we met on different parts of the Ohio State campus, walked through campus a number of times, and met off-campus so she could be well-informed of the OSU/Columbus area.

To wrap up, what are the final benefits of this mentorship program? Clearly, there is a wide array of benefits this ACES experience has brought, but the main few would have to be leadership skills, learning how to develop relationships, finding areas in Columbus to explore, and helping first-year students feel more comfortable in their transition to The Ohio State University.

Above are pictures of me and Meranda starting from Fall 2020-Spring 2021