Mentorship in the freshman year for most students is boring and more of a study hall for them. Freshmen are already required to take a study hall and mentorship takes up half of their lunch period, but if there were a point to it, then mentorship would be worthwhile.

Upperclassmen are able to mentor a group of freshmen for a history credit, which means that some mentors aren’t necessarily prepared to put in a lot of effort to make mentorship interesting. In order to avoid this, teachers could refer students that have a good work ethic and cheery disposition to reduce the risk of low-effort students taking on a job someone else might be better suited for.

“The two people in my mentorship are pretty fun,” freshman Jasmine Seeme said, “But I was in my friend’s classroom to make up a quiz and it was dead quiet in there. It was so awkward when I walked in.”

Just as teachers could refer students, other students could refer students, much like voting for a class president. Freshmen would look at nominees’ reasons to vote for them and decide whether or not they would like to sit in a classroom with that person for twenty minutes.

New or more introverted students usually don’t know that many people outside of their circle. Spending a few days at the start of the year to introduce everyone would help acclimate them to the mentorship classroom environment.

One of the biggest problems with mentorship is that the activities planned aren’t planned all that well. They seem to be an afterthought and some students don’t like to participate as much as others do. Having a wider array of things to do, such as board or improv games, is a good fix for this.

“I never really liked mentorship all that much,” sophomore Elaena Smith said, “The people there were annoying. I couldn’t get anything done because we played those games.”

Mentorship and freshmen lunch are early in the morning, so most, if not all, students are tired. On occasion, the counselors give out hot chocolate and coffee to students that want it on certain mornings. This tends to crowd the main hallway as people try to leave for their lockers and classes.

“I slept during all of the free time we had in mentorship,” sophomore Elijah Mersereau said, “If I remember right, they didn’t have coffee my freshman year last year. It would have been nice to go and get some during the time we had.”

A solution to the aforementioned problem would be to have the counselors do this during mentorship and lunch periods. It would be a big morale booster for sleepy, emotionally exhausted students and the hallway would be less crowded. 

A different answer to all the problems mentorship has is to not have mentorship altogether. The attempts at getting everyone to have fun together feel half-hearted and, if anything, add to the pre-existing exhaustion of the student body.

While it is nice to have time to do homework and catch up with friends, most already do these two things during their lunch or study hall. If the point of mentorship is to help freshmen get incorporated into the way high school works, then it does not feel like it accomplishes its goal.