Becoming a Peer Mentor- Week 1

Once I began to read this first chapter, I immediatley noticed the example given of a girl persuing to be a peer mentor. In this example, I saw that one person cannot keep piling things on without eventually overwhelming themselves. As I read on through the first chapter of this book I realized there was much more to mentoring than I first initiallly thought. I learned that their are different types of mentoring: formal and informal. Formal mentoring takes place in a work or educational setting which was the role I planned to take on.
Before reading this first chapter, I thought I knew what being a mentor was all about, but their was much more that I needed to learn. I learned their were many different aspects and things that I need to be aware of before becoming a peer mentor. The main idea that I had grasped was to focus on building a relationship and helping to understand my role while also making the most of the time I have. I knew before reading this chapter that tutoring was different from mentoring but I didn't realize by how much. Mentors and tutors are both their to help, but a peer mentor is more focused on encouragement and establishment of a more personal relationship with a student. As I was reading along through this chapter I came across the question, "How confident are you in your mentoring knowledge and skills?" and I then realized that I haven't really had much experience if any, in the peer mentoring set. With this in mind, I came to the conclusion that I was glad to be learning more and more about peer mentoring and what it is all about.
Coming to the end of this chapter, I came to a heading about balancing my needs and responsibilities as a peer mentor. I learned a few more things about ways to increase my success even more in the future while helping new students. I know now that I am pretty excited to be a peer mentor this coming fall to aid new students to a path of achievement.