In my sophomore year in the LIFE STEM program, I continued to be mentored by Dr. Donnelly on a bi-weekly basis.
Reflecting back on this school year, I believe that the support that Dr. Donnelly has provided has truly helped reduce anxiety and stress related to academics and college life. When we meet, I am able to share my worries and concerns regarding classes, work loads, extracurricular activities, and more. On the other hand, I am equally able to share positive things occurring in my life, along with topics not related to school. Dr. Donnelly and I share a lot in common, and we are comfortable with sharing information about our lives, our families being one example. Dr. Donnelly is extroverted and fun like me, so I always walk away from our conversations feeling refreshed. I look forward to our meetings because Dr. Donnelly creates a relaxing environment with coffee and kindness. This semester was slightly different in that I took her Physics 103 class in the spring. This did not change the quality of our meetings in any way. It only was slightly awkward because we would meet right before our Tuesday morning labs. We made the best of it and laughed about it every time, so it was not effecting our meetings at all.
If I could change something about our meetings, I want to bring more to our weekly meetings. We discussed this before, and we came up with ideas such as reading a book together or bringing a quote or question to the meetings. We talked about initiating this during Spring 2019, but it fell through because we naturally have so much to talk about. We also decided that it is hard to keep up with reading as the semester goes along. I am continuing to think of a fun activity to enhance our meetings. Overall, I love how our meetings are going, so I am not stressed about changing them drastically.