Second week of blogs and class

This week in class we talked about what some of the main problems or questions that incoming freshman would have coming into their first semester at college. Going into class I hadn’t even thought about frequent problems that they had. I was only thinking about what I had experienced and what situations I had gone through. It was a big wake up call that I need to start preparing and preparing myself for the coming year.

Something that I think is the most relevant thing to think about is that every student is going to have to find out who they are and who they want to be in college. I think they will have lots of questions about how I handled it and what advice I would have for their situation. But there would be some things that I never had to go through. For example, I never had to deal with homesickness because my home was only 20 minutes away. This would take some preparation and thought on how I would handle that question.

One of the things that the booked did really well was laying out all of the things that people struggle with during their first year at college. For example they talked about how most first year students can have troubles with adjusting to living with someone that they might not get along with first semester or living with integrity even though there is no one watching over your shoulder. 

I was kind of surprised to find that this book actually had some information that would be useful to apply in my time as a peer mentor. In my experience most books that are supposed to be helpful in teaching you things, aren't usually pretty good. But, with the first two chapters of this book it has made really excited for the rest of the semester and to see how it prepares us to be peer mentors!

First Blog as a Peer Mentor!

Hello,
My name is Sam Hausler and I am a sophomore majoring in Finance. I have lived on campus for the past two years in Larch hall, and yes I love polar bears! But I am not writing about polar bears, I am writing about myself. I was homeschooled up until my junior year of high school when I started going to Ankeny Christian Academy. I graduated from ACA with a class size of 11. Thats right, 11. So not a big change from being homeschooled. Then I came to Iowa State where my first class has over 300 students in it. That was a big change, but the change has ultimately been good and helped me to grow as a person.

The time when I am at my best is when I am around people I love, doing something that I have a passion for. I am a very emotional person so when I there is something I am passionate for, it motivates me to continue to work harder and try to do the best job that I can do.

What I enjoy doing most is connecting with people. I feel like I can use things that have happened in my life and things that I am still going through to relate to people and help them through tough times in their life.

Something I enjoy learning about is things that I can apply to everyday life. I don't like the classes when the teacher just says things that you could never use either in your future or now as a student. I understand that not all things are applicable to your major, but when they can tie something back into an application, then I enjoy those classes or lectures.

My goals as a peer mentor is to help transition freshman into their move to college. I was blessed to have many older students that could give me advice and help me to not make stupid mistakes. Another goal that I have is just to simply be there for the people in my group. I want to be available and someone that they know they can come to outside of class and recitation.

The role that I would play is something that I kind of talked about in the last question. To always be available to the students, and to give them things that I have found helpful in my transition.

Sam Hausler