Being A Peer Mentor

Being a peer mentor is not an easy task. It requires a great deal of awareness, hard work, and passion in order to facilitate the class to the best of your abilities. In turn, it is important to not take the job too seriously, and that is why my fellow peer mentors and I have developed a humor culture within the context of the class we are teaching. The humor culture helps us to work on, yet make light of the political correctness and inclusion we must constantly be practicing in our line of work. To start off, a peer mentor is a student who helps co-facilitate a one-credit topics course called Integrated Liberal Studies 138. This course is for first year students and it teaches them topics such as what a liberal arts education is, diversity, identity, campus resources, and self care and self awareness. All these topics are geared toward acclimating freshman to their first year of college, and giving them the tools to succeed here at UW …show more content…
Another example is when we see each other and say “Hi guys!” and follow it by “I mean guys and girls… I mean folks…I mean friends.” This is poking fun at the fact that we must always be using inclusive language to make sure everyone is always included. A final example is we were playing the game LIFE in class, and a fellow peer mentor who happened to be a white male won the game, and we commented that of course the privileged white male won the game, because they have no struggles in life and will always