Peer-To-Peer Program Aims To Engage First-Year Students At Hialeah Campus

As a high school student at Mater Academy Charter, Jessica Perez never saw herself as a leader let alone a mentor. 

Shy and introverted, the teenager preferred the background rather than the spotlight. But that all changed when she enrolled at Miami Dade College and became part of Hialeah Scholars. 

The initiative, based at Hialeah Campus, is a mentoring program aimed at showing first-year students the on-campus resources that are available to them so they can succeed and remain in college.

“When I joined Scholars it opened up doors for me,” Perez said. “It helped me get a job at MDC and helped me gain more resources that I didn’t even know the school [could] offer.”

Hialeah Scholars was started in 2016 by dean of students Nelson Magaña and Florine Lazard, a former employee at the campus.

The idea was to help new students get acclimated to life on campus by having their peers show them the ropes. 

“That first month can be a little intimidating,” Magaña said. “With that in mind we figured ‘Let’s get some students who’ve figured it out and can communicate things a lot better than we can.’ ”

During the first year, the program had about seven mentors and 30 mentees. If a student wanted a mentor, they had to request one.

Now the mentors target first-year courses like SLS and ENC 1101. According to Magaña, Hialeah Campus gets about 1,000 new students each fall semester. 

“[Mentees] see us around and just having that young fresh face helps because they’re like ‘Oh she’s my age so I can probably speak to her,’ ” said Nayely Rivero, a mentor in the program.

 To become mentors, students must fill out an application and meet various requirements including having a 2.5 GPA, be enrolled in a minimum of six credits in the fall and spring, and actively participate in the program year-round.  

Mentors earn community service hours for classroom visits through The Institute for Civic Engagement and Democracy (ICED), improve their communication skills and augment their resume with the experience they garner. 

Once selected, peer mentors are put through training. The training includes team-building sessions and shows mentors how to find on-campus resources that are available on campus. 

Those resources include Single Stop, Learning Resources, Financial Aid, Student Life, the Food Pantry, Career Closet and campus organizations. 

Mentors are then assigned to a professor and attend class twice a week, every other week. During that period, mentors give 10-minute presentations about campus resources.

Working closely with Manuel Rosa, the program’s advisor, scholars also host events monthly to further engage students. Activities range from karaoke sessions, salsa events and trivia nights. 

“[Students] tend not to listen to adults,” Rosa said.  “We relay the message and give the students training so that it comes from students they can relate to.”

For more information about the program, contact Manuel Rosa at (305) 237-8862 or at mrosa@mdc.edu.

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