This year’s PMiP module has come to an end. Students – both mentors and mentees – have celebrated their achievements with a ‘goodbye party’. And each mentor and mentee brought an object that represented his/her mentoring experience.

The final get-together was also an opportunity to look back – and reflect. These are some of the things mentors said about the programme – and their mentoring experience:

My time during peer mentoring was very beneficial and I learnt and experienced a lot from the different students, and it was a very enjoyable experience.

This course has been something of an encouragement to me, not just in terms of my own learning and my own performance as a mentor, but in a more philosophical term about what I understand a mentor to be.

Throughout the semester I have learnt and developed a lot of skills that will be transferable to all other aspects of my life involving academic, working, and personal environments.

I learnt a lot from the effective peer mentoring, how to communicate in a professional manner, what it is like to be an educationist and also gave me an insight on how it is for our lectures who stand up every day in front of us.

This gave me an insight of how being an educationalist is, how it is to feel in charge and everyone relying and looking up to you to try and understand the information your presenting.

Taking part in this module ‘Peer mentoring in Practice’ has given me an insight as to what it would be like to support another person’s learning.

Not only did I learn a lot during the class lectures, but also I also learned from the mentees, and in the end, I learned a lot about myself.

This module made me realise that I was reliable. I had never missed a mentor session; I was always early ready for the mentees. I made sure that I was the first person in the class and I had all the slides and work sheets out for the mentees.

Peer mentoring as a whole was a great learning experience and helped me understand the importance of helping others and listening attentively to someone in need.

I learnt a lot about myself through this experience and I’ve realise that everybody has experiences they could share with others and it can be a meaningful exchange on both sides.

The past 12 weeks of peer mentoring has taught me a substantial amount about myself, dealing with people, working together as a group, listening and communication skills, and most of all has provided the ability to apply theory to real life situations.

The ability to meet and engage with peers was always a fear whilst heading into this module, but picking up ice breaker techniques and taking into account the emotions and feelings of the mentees, through showing empathy meant we were able to establish confident relationships with our mentees.

There was only one incident during my time as a mentor, which was the scenario with a mentee requesting me to make adjustments to her essay. Looking back on it I believe I handled the incident in the correct manner, as what any mentor would be expected to do when presented with such an issue.

We have had couple of people make up excuses or maybe some had valid reasons such as they had assignments to do and some had personal reasons, however, I felt disappointed to see students dropping out every week.

I believe that my time as a mentor was successful, I passed on advice, tips and helped a student work on her assignment without actually telling her the answers which is what a mentor is there to do.

What I took away from this encounter was never to assume you know better than others even though you might seem to be the experienced one. Mentor and mentee relationship involves two partners and both learn from each other.

I believe I came across as a friendly and approachable individual that anyone could talk too without a worry for being judged, no matter the question.

The module has been very valuable in shaping my ideas and thoughts of how to treat peers, friends and indeed young students in the future.

I realise that being a good listener is a skill that needs to be consciously learned and get use to.

Most of these skills I learned in this class, I could also apply to my everyday life with family and friends. Really learning and understanding the difference between empathy and sympathy will probably be one of the main things I take out of this course.

The experiences in helping the mentees and knowing you have accomplished helping, makes you feel happy knowing you have given them your time to try and understand them and their situation.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a mentor, to the point I applied for a job as a mentor (part-time) at the university itself.

I feel confident enough to use this qualification to help find a job in secondary school as I feel that teenagers are in most need of help and support especially around the time of GSCE exams.

My practices and experiences as a mentor have taught me a lot and will enhance my skills and abilities in completing my degree/PGCE in order in become a teacher.

Overall, this peer mentoring class prepared me a lot for the future. I eventually want to be a mentor to unprivileged children, or victims of abuse. Maybe the complete opposite of first year university students, but I will still take most of the information I learned in this course and apply it to whatever field I end up.

To be a great educator is a goal of mine, by taking this course I felt the ideas put forth placed one step ahead in achieving that goal.