Last year LSE LIFE piloted a new student-to-student undergraduate mentoring programme, Student Academic Mentorship (SAM).
The programme was initiated by two undergraduate students, Arnav Kapoor and Joh Hann Lee from the department of Economics, who specifically wanted to help undergraduate students by offering them academic support as mentors.
Read this interview to find out how they set up the SAM programme, how they're helping to build a student community at LSE, and their hopes to continue to provide widespread peer-to-peer academic support for students.
Tell me about the Student Academic Mentor (SAM) programme.
Arnav: The basic idea of the programme is to give first year students access to peer-to-peer advice from other students in the School. We felt that friends in other years had given us useful tips to guide us through from when we first joined LSE, so we felt that it would be great if that could be formalised. It’s hard as a first year to see exactly what you’ll be doing in your third year, so our big vision for this programme was creating a ‘student academic community’. It takes time to make friends in older years and get advice, so I feel it would have been really helpful to have that from the get-go.
Joh Hann: By the time you’ve made friends in second and third year it’s really too late to ask for extra support because you’ve made your course choices, you’ve already started revising, and there’s no time to find tips. We wanted to break down the barriers between older students and new entrants so that first years don’t have to make the same mistakes as we did!
Why did you both get involved with the SAM programme?
Arnav: I think for me, I just like to help with the academic isolation a lot of people feel. After Welcome, you’ve made friends – in terms of social life. You can also join societies – in terms of pursuing your hobbies. But when you run into academic difficulties, people can feel quite isolated and not feel comfortable talking to their peers about it. While this is something teachers can help with, first years may not feel comfortable reaching out to them initially. That’s where I think the SAM really adds value. It provides an opportunity to speak with someone who has been in your shoes and taken the same courses a few years earlier.
Joh Hann: Certain things I learned on my course took 10 weeks to understand, and when I actually understood it, it would have taken me two minutes to explain to someone else. Some of these things just don’t get taught about in classes necessarily - that’s why I got involved to help students with their academic barriers.
How do mentors help the undergraduates they meet up with?
Joh Hann: Mentors help undergraduates by telling them what they can do on their course, letting them know what their own undergraduate experience at LSE was like, where they made mistakes, and so on. There are a lot of skills that first years don’t think that they need yet, so sometimes it’s just good for them to share their ambitions so mentors can say “oh I made this mistake and had the same ambition but this is something I didn’t do, this is something I should have done…” for example.
Arnav: In my experience, classes are very helpful but equally they have time constraints. If you’re sitting down with a SAM programme mentor to ask one specific question, you can enjoy having an additional bit of time where you can get some advice.
Have you heard about any students who’ve already been helped by the SAM programme?
Joh Hann: I actually met one of the mentors yesterday while I was queuing for food. She told me that she was going to celebrate Chinese New Year with all of her mentees. One of the aims of the programme is to break down the barriers between years, because sometimes even within your own year you don’t make a lot of friends, especially in a department like Economics where there are so many people. So I think it’s quite encouraging to see third years going out to celebrate festivals together with other students and forming a peer group. It’s just really nice because LSE doesn’t really have a campus and it’s quite intense, so people can spend most of their time studying rather than making friends.
Are there other initiatives at LSE which are trying to break down these barriers?
Joh Hann: I think LSE LIFE in general is trying to break down barriers. It’s a relatively new initiative so they are keen to try out new ideas, and I think sponsoring initiatives like the SAM programme helps. They have quite a few other workshops where students can learn from other departments, so I think LSE LIFE is one of the best places to do that.
Arnav: I think LSE LIFE is really important because the difference it’s made having this space with the initiatives they’re running has been really noticeable.
Joh Hann: I know that during my first two years most of my friends at LSE stayed with me in halls, so I didn’t make many friends outside of that space. That’s why one of the objectives of this programme is to help people build a network throughout the whole School rather than in just a small select group.
Do you think there’s a student community at LSE?
Arnav: I think there’s absolutely a community in LSE. When you first join it’s quite hard to break into that community or find your friend group and where you fit into it. There’s definitely a big friendly welcome, so you just need a second year or someone else in your year to introduce you to more people so that you can really start getting involved.
Joh Hann: I think LSE has many different communities but sometimes they’re quite discrete and don’t blend into each other. For example, if I was part of the Investment Society I would meet a lot of investment society people, and if I was part the Economics Society I’d meet economics people. There are even smaller societies here and there which could involve five people and that would be your community. So I think LSE LIFE is really important because they don’t want to create their own community, they want to blend everyone else into one community.
Have you felt there have been changes to the student experience this year?
Arnav: I think LSE LIFE is obviously the most noticeable change from last year so that made a big difference. I've also found it a lot easier to get information this year, for example there were emails about an event with the Director. It’s been good to hear about things that the School is doing, particularly the events which the School is running to listen to students’ views.
Joh Hann: When I came here to study at LSE, I used to try and find a place in the Library, but now LSE LIFE is my go-to place. When I come here I end up looking at the leaflets, which have these lists of stuff that’s available. That sort of helps me know what’s going on and I feel more part of the community when I know about it.
What's next for the SAM programme?
Joh Hann: My hope for this programme is that students have a mentor who can be the first point of contact immediately when you come into LSE from your first week. This person would be a casual point of contact you can discuss things with, especially academic stuff because it tends to be quite hard to get support in that area.
Arnav: I guess our hope is that on a larger scale after the pilot, the SAM programme adds to what the School already provides, and continues to provide widespread peer-to-peer academic support for students. The real hope is that lots of people get access to that advice and it really helps them with their module choices and other issues.
If you're a student with ideas for new initiatives or projects, get in touch with LSE LIFE to discuss your ideas.
Find out more about the SAM programme and how to get involved in this blog by LSE LIFE Learning Developer Jenny Stowar.
Any departments interested in the possibility of setting up a student to student peer mentoring programme can contact LSE LIFE for more information.