Meaningful Mentorship

First Year Mentor video image

First Year Mentor video image

Video by Joe O'Neill

First-year student and mentor discuss the power of Dickinson's First-Year Mentor program

“What I’m doing matters,” says Brooke Serra ’15, reflecting on her time as a mentor in Dickinson’s First-Year Mentor program. “I have a purpose here.”

The First-Year Mentor program was recently put in place as part of the college's enhanced effort to provide layered support—through fellow students, staff and alumni—to first-year students, and Serra’s mentee in the program has been Estiven Rodriguez ’18.

“Brooke is always there when I need her,” says Rodriguez, who notes that a true friendship has developed between the two. “She always wants me to become a better person, to be a better student.”

Bringing everything full circle, Serra will head off to New York in July to help a new wave of students when she begins her teaching assistant position at Blue Engine, the organization that helped Rodriguez find his way to Dickinson.

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Published February 4, 2015