Self Controversy

We all have done many MBTI’s before, I personally took 3 the first semester last year alone. I thought they were very helpful for starting out college but I was confused with some of the certain letters. Mainly I was confused with the extraversion and introversion, which deals with where you get your energy from. My confusion was that I feel like I am a very energetic person that likes to meet new people but sometimes I just sit back more like an “I”. With this test it broke it down each type into 5 sub categories, which explained my “E” and “I” controversy. It said I was receiving and contained, and those are both on the “I” side but it says I am an "E". Receiving and contained says that I am more reserved, like to get introduced and harder to get to know, which is very true for me because once introduced and know the person more, I am very open. My other type that was interesting to me was my “J” and “P”, I am a “P” but a low “P” and then the early starting sub category was very high, which is in the “J”. I like to start things early and plan but I don’t usually totally fallow that plan and I like to be spontaneous and do random things.

The MBTI taught me a lot about myself and I believe it will help me to not only become a good mentor but will help me to improve myself as a person and help out with school and my career. This MBTI helped me to get to know the other peer mentors and see who is like me and who might complement me as a partner like Allie and Silas complement each other.

Student's in Transition: The ABC's

While making the transition from high school to college, I think the hardest part is the difference in classes. High school students have to go to class for eight hours straight, but in college classes aren’t always back to back and not eight hours in one day. So it takes quite a bit of adjusting to get use to only having class one and a while and having a lot of free time. This is just one of the hardest things I went through last year, and this chapter talks about this and many other problems of transferring to college from high school. As mentors, we need to aid student in transferring from high school to college. One way the book talks about this is the ABC’s of mentoring students in transition; Acknowledge the student’s reality, Be strategic and student-focused, and Commit students to do it. What I got from this section was, that you don’t know if the student is struggling with the transition, we as mentors need to ask questions and get to know students so they are comfortable talking to you. Once a student opens up to you, as mentor you should know how to respond to help them with their problem. After figuring out what they should do, help them commit to it and check back with them.

Odysseus's Trusted Counselor

What is a Mentor? This may seem like a simple question that you know the answer to, at least I thought I did until I begun to read Peer Mentor Companion. I have had many mentors through my life confirmation mentor, high school mentor, Hixson peer mentor, learning community peer mentor, and many more that you may never think as a mentor. As the mentee of these many mentors, I thought them to be someone just lending a helping hand but as I read through Peer Mentor Companion I realized that they are more of life changers who are guiding you through a certain part of your life. Among realizing this, I realized that I am not as prepared to be a good mentor as I once thought I had been. This being said I become more eager to go to class and learn my strengths and weaknesses so I know what I can work on to become that outstanding mentor I thrive to be.

While sitting in class this past Tuesday, going over the syllabus for the class and finding out what events are to come. I know that I have been given the tools to form myself into that outstanding mentor and it is now up to me to construction myself into a lean mean mentoring machine. With the aid of the Mentoring Confidence Inventory, I know some of the major things that I need to become more confident on before starting my mentoring. As I work on these things I know that I will have to support of my fellow mentors that I look forward to getting to know and working with, in the digital storytelling project.