Meet Christopher Hess. Christopher is a freshman in Electrical Engineering. He is from Springfield Missouri. Christopher decided to attend the University of Arkansas because of its great engineering program and the beautiful location. In his free time he enjoys riding the bike trails and playing disc golf.
The University of Arkansas has a great College of Engineering with several resources designed to help students transition from high school, choose a discipline and ultimately graduate. Freshman entering the College of Engineering are required to go through the Freshman Engineering Program, which has unique requirements for students. One of these requirements is to meet with a peer mentor once a week.
These peer mentors are all engineering students, most of them have also been through the Freshman Engineering Program as well so they are a valuable resource. The peer mentors will have topics prepared for each meeting ranging from off campus living arrangements to linkedin profiles and resumes. The topics provided can be very useful, and they make transitioning from high school to majoring in engineering surprisingly easy. Despite this, the premade topics weren’t the most beneficial part of this program.
These mentors are very well prepared to answer any questions you have about the engineering program, or even just about anything about college life. In my experience, they were more than willing to find answers to questions they couldn’t answer on the spot. If your student is in this program you should encourage them to get to know there mentor and ask them questions. My mentor was extremely helpful, and also set up many beneficial opportunities for me.