My experience as a peer mentor

Being a peer mentor over the last few weeks has been an enriching and rewarding experience. It felt incredible to be able to help kids who are in the same position I was exactly a year ago. Over the last few weeks, my students learned about university expectations, resources, and tips/tricks to doing well in AFM. However, my mentees aren’t the only people who learned something this summer – I also gained many valuable lessons from the experience. Some of the key things I have learned as a Waterloo Ready peer mentor are:

1. Listening is one of the most important skills you can learn: When I listened to the student’s concerns and fears, I was better able to tailor my delivery of module content to directly answer their questions.
2. Mentorship is a two-way street: While my mentees gained a lot from speaking with me (I hope!), I also learned a lot about compassion and patience during the process. Mentoring people you have never met before can be a difficult task, but when approached with a caring mindset it can be rewarding for both the mentee and the mentor.
3. No one has all the answers: There were times during the mentorship experience when a student would ask me a question that I had absolutely no idea how to answer – some things just aren’t covered in training. This pushed me to reach out to my network and seek their advice on how to answer certain questions.
4. Mentoring promotes self-reflection: There were a lot of times I was asked thought-provoking questions about my own experiences on campus. This forced me to reflect on my own time at Waterloo to really understand what I learned from it.
5. Discuss the wins AND the losses: While talking about success is fantastic, it is still important to remind ourselves that failure is a natural part of life and we stand to gain a lot from it. By encouraging my mentees to never lose hope after a setback, I also reminded myself of the importance of this.