UAA Peer Adviser
Supporting Students as they Make Meaning of their Undergraduate Education
Overview
Throughout the past year I have worked as a Peer Adviser for Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA) Advising. UAA Advising primarily serves UW pre-major students as they explore, plan out, and make meaning of their undergraduate education. In my role I work alongside a team of seven other peers to support professional staff by answering emails submitted to the general advising email account and by seeing students for 10-15min “Quick Question” drop-ins discussing topics ranging from course planning and registration to resource referrals and processing pathway changes.
The 2019 - 2020 Peer Adviser team is a team of junior and senior students committed to serving and supporting other students by using their own experiences and expertise. This was during our training week right before Autumn Quarter started.
L to R: Kim, Me, Kseniia, Madeline, Makayla, Alexa, Natasha (Not pictured: Devin and D'Andre)
Personal Importance of Work
Throughout my Orientation roles I recognized that the work I found most fulfilling was having conversations with students in registration labs about class schedule building. Thus, when I heard about peer advising, I pursued the position because I saw it as a way to intersect my excitement around course planning and major pathway discussions with my passion for student-centered work. Now, each day at my job I get to partner with students to develop schedules, overcome academic barriers, process life events, and problem-solve through perceived setbacks. This position has given me insight on how to support the varying needs of different student populations, fueled my passion for educational equity, and furthered my interest in pursuing a career in Higher Education.
Tasks Accomplished
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Provide academic support to a diverse student population including international students, transfer students, and students considered to be at-risk or on low scholarship
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Manage and respond to questions both in person through one-on-one drop-in appointments and via emails submitted to the public-facing office account in a professional, accurate, and timely manner
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Clearly communicate information related to course registration and University policies, providing referrals to cross-campus resources as appropriate
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Appropriately manage sensitive information when partnering with students to problem-solve solutions to difficult or confusing academic situations
Leadership Competencies Gained
Appropriate Interaction
Peer Advising is difficult because while I can relate to many of the experiences that students bring in, I have to balance my empathy with the responsibilities that come with being an professional figure representing UAA. For example, students will often ask questions such as whether they should drop a class or what the “easiest” courses to take are. As a friend I want to tell them exactly what to do because I relate to just wanting an answer and have experiences that have given me opinions on their best option. However, as an authority figure representing UAA, my job is to coach students through problem-solving and personal choice. Thus, instead of giving advice, I use techniques such as open-ended question asking or weighing pros and cons to empower students to make their own decisions based off of their life instead of off of mine. While my empathy allows me to step into conversations with an understanding of what a student might be feeling, my ability to be aware of and engage in appropriate interactions for the context I am in allows me to uphold office expectations and support student autonomy.
Mentoring
Being a peer adviser has grown my competency of mentoring because of how it has restructured how I understand mentorship can take place. Before this position I thought that effective mentorship could only happen through long-term relational investment. However, my conversations with students and the moments of excitement, frustration, and comprehension I have shared with them through drop-ins has taught me that even 10-15 minutes is enough to have a significant impact. Looking forward, I hope to continue to explore and apply best practices for mentorship to the communities I get to work with so that I can continue push others towards their full potential in both the short- and long-term interactions I get to have with them.
Empathy
My time at UW has been filled with significant challenge - family, health, and financial turmoil and major pathway changes to name a few. While these bumps in the road have been difficult, my work with students has helped me to see how they have actually equipped me to be a better Peer Adviser because of the deeper understanding I have of all students are balancing. Working with a range of student populations whose experiences I might not explicitly share has taught me how to use my own experiences as a foundation for finding empathy and facilitating connection with others who I might not initially feel like I have anything in common with. These connections in turn allow me to establish trust and comfortability more quickly in relationships because of the genuine care that they give me for others. Overall, while I came into peer advising with a strong ability for empathy, this position has given me opportunities to strengthen this competency and expand it to connecting with others who are both alike and different than myself.
Scope of Competence
An important aspect of Peer Advising is understanding what one does and does not know because an incorrect or misleading answer to a question can have long-term impacts both on a student’s academic trajectory and on their future trust in the credibility of advising. Despite my ability to function independently, I have learned to discern when I need to bring a professional staff or another peer adviser into a conversation with a student because I know that that they have more expertise on a topic than I do. For example, one area I am strong in is transfer student credit equivalencies and course planning because of my past experience working transfer orientations. However, I have less experience with med school application preparation, so when students come to talk about this topic, I often find myself checking with professional staff or campus partners who better know these requirements. Peer Advising has given me awareness around what situations I can apply my knowledge toward and what situations would benefit from collaboration with someone else and has given me more confidence in engaging in learning moments that will push me toward becoming a more well-rounded adviser.
Problem-Solving
In Peer Advising, every day brings new students I get to work through new challenges with. Some situations are re-occurring; a student doesn’t get into their major and is looking for alternative pathways or a student is doing poorly in a class and is wondering what their options are. For these circumstances I have learned to let go of assumptions, because while some answers might be similar over time, each student brings in unique context that requires consideration when brainstorming solutions. Other problems are unexpected and more difficult to navigate; perhaps an exchange student doesn’t have housing, or an international transfer student is navigating credit limits, constrained majors, and Visa requirements all at once. These dynamic problems often require intentional collaboration between the student, me, and campus partners and might not have a single “good” answer, so it is a process of weighing the pros and cons and picking action steps that will work toward the most appropriate solution for the context. Thanks to advising, I have become strong in seeing both the current problem and the underlying factors contributing to it and have become knowledgeable in how to coach a student through the best potential solutions in an empathetic and productive wayt than myself.
Functioning Independently
Peer Advisers are trusted to hold themselves accountable to assisting students on queue and by email responsibly, efficiently, and accurately so that professional staff can hold individual appointments. As a result, this position is building my confidence in functioning independently to find, synthesize, apply, and communicate information clearly, correctly, and concisely to students without feeling the need to constantly seek out verbal affirmation or fact check everything. The agency I am given in my job also allows me to experiment with ways that I can incorporate my own personality into my interactions with students and has given me the space to practice different advising approaches to see what is most effective for me. As I look into going into advising professionally, the ability to function independently while maintaining a high quality of work will be instrumental to both to my own success and to the success of the students I work with, so having the opportunity now to develop my advising philosophy and skills of self-accountability, time management, and responsibility is setting me up well for the future.
Looking to the Future
Professionally, Peer Advising has shown me that the value of advising goes beyond planning schedules and is also about providing a space where students can find holistic empowerment and problem-solving support. Personally, the dynamic array of stories I get to listen to and process through each day keep me in a constant growth mindset as I adapt to new situations and interact with new people daily. Overall, I am becoming a more well-rounded, diligent, and humble person as a result of Peer Advising, and I hope to apply the skills and competencies I am gaining through this position to my career in Higher Education in the future, maybe even through a professional advising role.
Me in my Peer Adviser shirt, ready for work
This is the advice@ email inbox that Peer Advisers manage. On the right you can see emails regarding key policies, deadlines, resources, and departmental decisions that we need to be aware of as we speak to students and respond to emails.
This is a screenshot of the system we use to check students in. It tells us how long each appointment took and how many students we have waiting
UAA Advising Mission Statement
