Student Mentoring Program, "A valuable experience at FAREM-Carazo"

Abstract

The mentor program began in 2016, in the first semester with first-year students and basic subjects such as: Language and Literature, Introduction to Physics, Introduction to Chemistry and General Mathematics, as an initiative of management of degree teaching, together with the teaching departments of UNAN-Managua.

One of the most common problems encountered by a first-time student in the university environment is his profound ignorance of it, especially if we take into account the radical change in methodology of work and study with which he is confronted, which further complicates their integration into university life.

One of the measures taken at UNAN-Managua, specifically in the Regional Faculty of Carazo, is the implementation of the mentor students program, who with their availability have allowed the project in this first semester of 2016 to have been a success, improving quality in the student body and, therefore, the academic performance in the faculty.

This article describes in detail the experience carried out in the FAREM-Carazo, on the implementation of the mentoring program. In the Mentor Project, students of more than one academic year and under the supervision of teachers, help and guide students with some academic problems so that they can overcome it and experience shows that the objective of improving quality and academic performance has been reached.

It should be emphasized that the Department of Educational Sciences and Humanities was the leader of this program carried out by the coordinating team and led by the Methodological Unit. Most of the mentors were the students of the same department who are being trained to be teachers, except for two students from the Department of Science Technology and Health who took the challenge and fulfilled it completely (a second year student of Industrial Engineering who Worked with the subject Introduction to Physics and a third year student of Clinical Bio-analysis who worked with Introduction to Chemistry).