Mentoring & Social Supports
By Natalie Simmons
March 27, 2024
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Peer mentoring and social support are extremely important aspects of student life and academics within a university. Oftentimes, challenging classes can cause students to feel isolated and alone as they navigate through the course. In my own experience, I have sat back to reflect and felt as though nobody understood what I was going through as a student because my professor was an expert in their field of expertise and I couldn’t possibly be expected to understand what they were teaching throughout the course.
Now that I am a learning assistant for the same course that brought about these feelings, I understand from a new point of view how to curb these thoughts and provide support to other students. I think it is very important to emphasize to students that despite the grades and discussion within the class from their peers, many often do not understand the most challenging concepts of the class right away. Most students come to lecture or lab with minimal understanding of the concepts being presented. What they do in their own free time to engage in learning and preparation for exams and quizzes makes a world of difference, and often accounts for most grade discrepancies between classmates.
Photo provided by Natalie Simmons
When I was in the class, I wished that I had a mentor that I could reach out to to help me manage these feelings of inadequacy. Now that I have taken on the role of a learning assistant, I feel as though it is my duty to help my students manage these emotions and direct them on the path to success. Additionally, I have often felt as though I may have someone to turn to for support on the class topics, such as SI leaders through the Center for Academic Achievement, but not somebody I could reach out to in order to find further support within Florida Gulf Coast University as a whole. My advisors did not have a lot of initial feedback for many of my questions, and my peers in the same spot as me were often just as confused.
Many of my students are pre-nursing majors just like I was during the class, and will eventually begin on their journey of applying to the nursing school here at FGCU. I felt very alone once again as I navigated my way through applying, filling out forms, scheduling, and transitioning to the Marieb College of Health and Human Services. I look forward to being able to be a guide to these students and have them reach out to me for help in this realm as well, even after completion of their course with me. When I was able to find someone to reach out to for my own processes of applying to the FGCU nursing program, a lot of stress and anxiety was alleviated for me. I hope that in the future I am able to provide this kind of support to students. I have begun on this journey already, as I often spend a good amount of time before and after class discussing with my students how certain processes work and what the timeline for their education may look like. It has been very rewarding to provide this support for my students for something other than just my learning assistant duties, and many students have expressed their appreciation and relief for my insight on what their path here at FGCU could look like.
Finally, social support is a role that I did not initially realize came with the job of being a learning assistant. I have had many students come to me inside and outside of class to discuss personal feelings about their own social life, as well as doubts about their path and possible alternatives here at the university. I feel an immense privilege that my students feel safe enough to come to me for this support, and I often wonder who they would go to and if they would be satisfied with the advice they were given if I was not there to answer their questions. I think this is an overlooked aspect of being a learning assistant that provides major benefits for our students and is a very important part of our role in the classroom.
The majority of myself and my students is only one of numerous paths students can take here at Florida Gulf Coast University, and I think the role of a learning assistant in many different courses and fields of education is an extremely important part of student success and mentorship at the university. I feel as though the picture at right is a great reflection of what it feels like to be a mentor and a guide for students and what the relationship can be. I often feel like I am the gardener in some aspects, where I can provide water during a drought and push students into sunlight on a cloudy day to foster growth and success within them.
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