Menlo News November 11, 2014

Helping Each Other Out

How do seniors help freshmen make their way through the first year of high school? Brooke Hammarskjold ’15 explains in her Coat of Arms article.

New Structure to Senior-Freshmen Mentorship Program
By Brooke Hammarskjold ’15, Coat of Arms Print Editor

For many freshmen, the first year of high school can be extremely daunting as they navigate new social and academic scenes. In previous years, a senior mentorship program for freshmen has existed with varying degrees of committment. This year, Freshman Class Dean Margaret Ramsey seeks to modify the program to make it more structured.

A group of five seniors: Sam Rubin, Mackenzie Bressie, Jack Hammond, Rebecca Shoch and Chris Crouch were elected by Ramsey to coordinate the program. These leaders organize the senior mentors and brainstorm topics that the freshmen might find valuable to talk about. “They meet with me and talk about what topics are [relevant] for a freshman in any given month that I as a teacher wouldn’t think about,” Ramsey said.

Then, each month, Ramsey and the leaders meet with the 45 senior mentors. In these meetings, the mentors are briefed on what to talk about in their upcoming discussions with the freshmen.

Next, the mentors meet with the freshmen in groups to discuss the topics they had brainstormed. About three mentors are paired up with a freshman advocacy group and the meetings generally take place in a casual lunchtime setting on the quad.

Since there are so many mentors, Ramsey has created strict guidelines for what they need to attend and do. “I hope that the structure both adds more value to the seniors but also creates more accountability, so that the freshmen don’t feel all this excitement at the beginning and then are abandoned,” Ramsey said. Part of this stems from the fact that Ramsey knows that many seniors- although genuinely wanting to support freshmen- add the program to their college applications. “I think a lot of people use this as something for college and that’s great except for it’s something meaningless. If it’s just a line and you didn’t do anything, then I don’t feel comfortable with that and I don’t think our students do either,” Ramsey said. That said, the seniors are also doing it because they genuinely feel that they could make freshmen year easier for their mentees. “I wanted to be a senior mentor because I wish a program like this existed for me. I think freshman will greatly benefit from it, and want to be a part of creating this program that will hopefully become part of Menlo,” senior mentor and leader Sam Rubin said.

Accountability is not the only possible challenge associated with this program. Ramsey and the senior mentors are also working to ensure that communication and scheduling does not become an issue. “I think that the biggest challenge is just having time to meet up as a group with the seniors and freshmen, but […] I’m hoping that everyone feels that they don’t have to schedule some huge event, but if they just catch up for ten minutes at lunch, that’s actually worthwhile,” Ramsey said.

Looking ahead, both the seniors and freshmen are enthusiastic about the program. “I’m really excited. I have an older brother who’s a senior so I get the boy aspect of the high school experience as a whole but it will be nice to have a girl to relate to,” freshman Grace Hammond said. Hammond and her older brother, senior Jack Hammond, are just one of the many senior-freshman sibling pairings. “There’s an unusual special bond between this year’s senior and freshmen class just by virtue that there’s so many siblings,” Ramsey said. Freshman Gillian Bressie also shares Hammond’s excitement for the discussions with seniors to come. “I think it’s interesting to have seniors and freshmen viewpoints on certain things,” Bressie said.

Ramsey hopes that this program will not only be successful for the freshmen, but also for the seniors. “Hopefully, as this program grows, being the leader is more of a thing. We’re hoping to have juniors apply next year and build this program so it will be more lasting,” Ramsey said.

In the next year, senior mentors and freshmen advocacies will be meeting monthly to talk over current issues in the Menlo community and offer advice about all aspects of high school.