Peer Leader
Medical Sciences Major
Center for First-Year Experience and Learning Communities
In the Spring Semester of my second year as an undergraduate student at the University of Cincinnati, I began working for the Center for First-Year Experience and Learning Communities as a Peer Leader. Learning Communities, which are the main focus of this office on campus, group students in the same major into the same sections of their required courses. This allows for students to have a familiar set of faces within each of their (sometimes very large) freshman courses, and gives students a group of friends with whom to tackle the difficult academic and personal challenges that come from transitioning into the first year of university life. Students in Learning Communities also meet for two hour-long sessions each week, which are led by older students in the same or a similar major that are called Peer Leaders. These Peer Leaders facilitate community building among the members of the Learning Community, teach the students important lessons about intellectual development, integrative learning, professionalism, and self-management, offer insight into university life, and connect students to important on- and off-campus resources, including their professors.
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Learning Communities are thus meant to build a network of friends between students in the same major that can support one another academically and personally. These Learning Communities are led by Peer Leaders who function to assist students in making the most of their first year at the University of Cincinnati. Together, the members of the Learning Community build bonds, explore passions and areas of interest, uncover campus resources to take advantage of, meet professors and faculty advisors, and work towards their academic goals. Ultimately, then, Learning Communities function to make a big university feel small.
Spring Semester 2016My first semester as a Peer Leader was a really wonderful experience. I had the opportunity not only to mentor and instruct, but to also befriend, the students in my Learning Community even though they had already been together as a group for one semester before I started. The experience was an interesting and challenging one, but one that I would not give up for the world. Each and every member of the Learning Community that I had in my first semester as a Peer Leader was a great student, and each had their own special contribution to the group that I greatly appreciated and enjoyed. I was fortunate to be placed with a group of students in the Medical Sciences Program that were already high achieving students. Moreover, these students had a strong support system at the College of Medicine that was very involved in ensuring student success. Because of this, I was provided with a great number of resources and opportunities to provide my students with wonderful activities and lessons that would open their minds to different ideas and their hearts to different experiences.
Serving as a Peer Leader was also the first time that I have been an instructor for a course, and that was a similarly eye-opening and wonderful experience. It was great to be able to craft course content and work with different professors and offices on campus to maximize student learning, connectedness, and enjoyment. In the future, I look to build upon my experiences as a Peer Leader as I look forward to a career that involves teaching in at least some capacity. The experience I have gained, the friends that I have made, and the lessons that I have learned as a Peer Leader are truly without measure in how they have made a positive impact on my university experience, and I am looking forward to continuing on this journey as a Peer Leader for the semesters to come. |
This is an example of the Lesson Plans that I created for each Learning Community class. Each Lesson Plan dealt with a different topic or theme, and varied from the importance of professionalism, to better understanding the relationship between healthcare and politics (as seen here). Each class, though, was designed to expose students to new resources, opportunities, or insight, that would allow them to further their academic and personal performance in their first year of college.
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In particular, my role as a Peer Leader has been especially helpful in my development and implementation of successful leadership qualities. As one of the University Honors Program's guiding thematic areas, Leadership is an essential part of student development. Thus, in addition to the work that I have done leading students in the classroom this semester, I have also had the chance to explore leadership theories to expand upon my experience. After reading about different theories on leadership, I have engaged in the quintessential process of reflection that is so characteristic of the University Honors Program. At left, you will find my reflective thoughts not only on my experience as a Peer Leader, but also on how I was able to integrate the leadership theories that I learned about into the role that I played for first-year students.
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