Kaysea Suzana | Contributing Writer
Traverse the darkness of college no more– now with the guidance of the Panther2Panther Mentor Collective.
The program pairs students with similar interests and majors. This benefits the mentee with advice, and insights into on-campus events and academic avenues, while the mentor gets hands-on tutoring experience.
“A lot of students coming in had a virtual experience, and so for me the connection is important to fuel the sense of belonging in students,” said Assistant Director of Academic Support Services, Giovanna Tello.
The collective is primarily a program that focuses on developing an advisory relationship between freshman-sophomore mentees and junior-senior mentors.
Usually, this is through attending events related to the mentee’s interests/ majors, while also conducting one-on-one meetings to discuss ways the mentee can pursue relevant resources.
Panther2Panther Mentor Collective ensures that students can properly share information with one another, in a manner that is approachable, confidential, and insightful.
From various events and clubs that peak your interests, to maybe even some life advice, Tello told PantherNOW that the focus of the mentor is to provide experience to the mentee.
Mentees on the other hand, are to incorporate their own experimentation with college, while also blending advice and suggestions given to them by their own Mentor.
“This is a pilot program, a first time, the goal being humanities students being matched with other humanities students,” said Associate Teaching Professor and Facilitator to the Humanities Edge program Cayce Wick to PantherNOW when asked about possible limitations to the Panther2Panther program.
Humanities Edge uses the available infrastructure of the Panther2Panther program to create a prototype of their own Humanities Edge sponsored peer mentoring program.
The arising problems from this as mentioned, is the novelty of its usage, as well as its primary interest in humanities focused students.
Nevertheless, mentors take great pride and determination in trying to help their mentees. Mentors have a guidance approach to mentees, and while they do not substitute as academic advisors, professors or any sort of counselor, they do have the focus of passing knowledge from their own experiences to their mentees.
“I hope to help others succeed where I have failed or struggled,” said Peer Mentor Yosef Khabinsky, “My perspective is: I want to help people. My siblings were my best resource when I was starting out– and I want to extend that to others.”
For information on the Panther2Panther Mentor Collective contact Senior Coordinator at Humanities Edge, Ashley Rodriguez at ashrodri@fiu.edu.
