Freshman Mentoring Provides Guidance for Newcomers to Penn

   The transition from middle to high school can often be a daunting experience for freshmen without a helping hand. However, the Freshman Mentoring program may be the enlightening experience these kids need.

10 years ago, Madeline Watkins, and Marni Cronk made the Freshman Mentoring program as “a way for the counselors to reach, instead of five percent or ten percent of the freshman population…one-hundred percent of the freshman population using mentors.”

The Mentors are trained at the beginning of the year, and then throughout the semester are given lesson plans, conversation topics, and general news to share with their freshmen. For the first semester, freshmen meet up with their mentor(s) at the end of the week.

Ryan Lynch, Class of 2020, shared what he enjoyed about the program. “The first thing I like about it is we get free food.” He is referring to the food that the mentors buy with their own money, usually from the local Martin’s Supermarket. Some examples of food items include pizza, doughnuts, cookies, and muffins.

All of this leads to everyone agreeing with one thing about Freshman Mentoring; the program is ultimately beneficial for all students in the program.