Office of First Year Programs

Peer Mentor, Fall 2017 and Fall 2018

The Peer Mentor program serves to connect first-year freshmen to older Florida International University students. These older students can offer advice, orientation, and knowledge to the freshmen to aid them in their transition from high school to college life. One Peer Mentor is assigned per First Year Experience course.

Fall 2017 was my first semester as a Peer Mentor. I was lucky enough to work with Professor Christie Murata, who taught the First Year Experience course to exclusively Global First-Year Students. This group was comprised of international students from all over the globe including Brazil,

India, Iran, Venezuela, and many more who moved to the United States to start their college careers.

As a Peer Mentor, I was Christie's right hand I aided in facilitating ice breakers for the students, giving a student perspective in class, and teaching resources on campus. My role was unique from other Peer Mentors in that I also had the challenge of working through culture and language barriers. Throughout the semester we focused on helping them transition to college life in the United States while upholding their home countries cultures and values. We used anecdotes and related FIU resources back to similar experiences in their home countries to help communicate and assimilate new information.

I decided to re-apply to be a part of the program again in the fall semester of 2019. This time around, I worked with Professor Mark DeMello facilitating the course for STEM first-year students. It was refreshing to see some of the students I had met during my experience as a Panther Camp Facilitator in this class.

Both experiences were unique and opened my eyes to two different groups of people that I had not directly interacted with before-hand. My first semester I learned a lot about the importance of diversity, unity, and bringing cultures. My second semester, I learned the importance and obstacles of women in STEM through the experiences of the femlae students in the class.

Images taken at the Peer Mentor celebration. Left was taken in 2017 and right in 2018.

About the Office of First Year Programs

The Office of First Year Programs facilitates the transition from high school to college for incoming FIU students.

The office runs the First Year Experience course, the Peer Mentor Program, and advising for exploratory majors.