Opportunities to meet upperclassmen

I think there exist several opportunities for freshman to interact with upper level students but those exists primarily in the social setting. This is just my perspective, and it may be different elsewhere, but while it was not easy to meet upperclassmen, it was not overly difficult. In my situation, I was the only one from my high school to enter U of I. Therefore, with no friend base I tried to explore and reach to many other people by joining activities.

It was relatively easy to make friends with other freshman. Every freshman is required to live in university housing. You meet your floor mates even before school begins and tend form groups to eat together in the dining halls. From there, you meet their friends and then suddenly you happen to know a lot of people. Another thing that I did was to just walk onto a tennis court and request to join them. If our levels were close, we would meet again to play. Lastly, there are many freshman introductory courses in which you meet other freshman in the same major. You meet many people quickly and realize that you will be together with them until graduation.

As I have mentioned, it is very easy to meet other freshmen. It is much harder to meet upperclassman and generally people from other majors. You are herded along with other first years to take required introductory courses. Typically few or none of the upperclassman attend these courses. This is true especially for the classes in your major. Most of the seniors that I met freshman year were from classes outside of major like Physics or Gen Eds. These were also dependent on the credits the students came with to skip intro classes.

An option that I personally like to meet seniors was to join a club or RSO. The Quad Day is great idea in this respect to introduce incoming freshman to the many clubs available on campus. After joining a club you meet a variety of people of varying class standings. Bound together by a common interest, there is good chance to make good friends.

Now from the perspective of an upperclassman, I feel that I don't necessarily “mentor” the freshman that I know. Sure, I help them when they need it. I also give advice on classes and general campus life, but it's a different king of relationship than mentoring. As you have questioned, there is a transfer of knowledge, or wisdom if you will, but typically it's subconscious.

I have had the opportunity to be both a mentor and a mentee so far. My perspective has also varied vastly between the two positions. As a mentee, I look up to my mentor and I sometimes feel awkward establishing contact. As a mentor, I try my best to smooth things out for my mentee and perceive things from a different perspective. What I realize in the end is that each mentor-mentee relationship is different and everything comes down to compatibility. Similar to our class project, when two people are pushed into this kind of relationship, the outcome will vary across the population.

When someone meets an upperclassman in a more natural things also appear less forced or enforced so your relationship with them is more of a friend and than a mentor. In the end, most of the work falls onto the mentor to maintain the relationship. Mentoring programs are always a good idea and proving good results but, depending on how motivated the mentor is, there is a larger chance of our program to be a success.