Nicki Uechi, 25, is KCC’s new peer mentor coordinator. In her senior year of high school, she not only took classes at McKinley but she joined the Running Start program and was duo enrolled at KCC. Once she completed her core classes at KCC, Uechi transferred to University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa where she obtained her bachelors in elementary education. Finally she entered UH Mānoa’s Masters in Educational Technology program and graduated in 2010. After graduating she worked with kids in the preschool to elementary level.
“I realized it was time for a change, to explore other options before I settle in a job for the next 35 to 40 years of my life,” Uechi said. While working with the children, she noticed that she liked interacting with their parents so Uechi figured that she could try out higher education and see how that goes.
“Although all the students I interact with may not be parents but they are an older group,” Uechi said.
The peer mentor program has been around since Spring 2010, and Uechi hopped on board KCC’s student success canoe in August 2011.
As the Peer Mentor Coordinator, Uechi coordinates with faculty and staff to determine ways peers can get more involved with the various departments and activities KCC has to provide support and encouragement for KCC students. She also has to schedule the 28 peers to different areas around campus while working around their school schedules.
The peer mentor program can help students with everything students have questions about. Their knowledge ranges from applying to KCC, to applying for financial aid, registering for courses and much more. They even help run the new student orientations that all incoming freshman must attend. The peer mentors are the go-to guys for general campus knowledge and run by the motto “to help navigate students through their journey to success.”
The peers’ main goal is to provide students with the information they need. And although they might not know all of the information on the spot, they’ll direct the student to the proper office or to someone who would be able to help. Either way, the peers try to leave the student with some kind of answer to help make their experience at KCC successful.
“I’m human so I don’t know the answer right away, but I’ll always guarantee that the student isn’t left hanging,” said 22-year-old Oliver Fermin, a peer mentor.
Sometimes students come to the peer mentors simply because they want someone to listen to their problems for a moment.
“Some of them just come and talk to you about their whole entire life,” said peer mentor Natasha Vendiola, 31. “I’m not a certified counselor but I have a lot of life experiences that they can relate to.”
Through the peer mentor program, students are not the only ones that are finding out new things. The peers themselves are learning more and more about themselves by their interactions with students.
“I’m finding that as I’m doing more peer mentoring, I actually enjoy counseling and just listening to people’s problems,” said Vendiola who’s currently majoring in liberal arts.
Since the peer mentor program is a fairly new program at KCC, one of their goals is to make a presence on campus. They want to get the word out about their program because the peers are available to help and students should take advantage of this instead of being confused. If a student needs to contact a peer mentor, they can visit them at one of the seven locations stationed around KCC. Just look for their bright blue shirts. The more general help desks are located in the Ho‘okele Center bottom floor of ‘Iliahi in the wing Subway is in.
There’s also one upstairs in the Kahikoluamea Center and in the library next to the reference desk.
The locations where peer mentors give more specific information on particular topics would be at the Kekaulike Information and Service Center (KISC) in ‘Ilima 102, the First Year
Experience office in ‘Iliahi 127, the Imiloa Studio in the Kahikoluamea Center and in the CELTT lab in Naio 207. The newest event that the peer mentor’s are getting involved in is with SOS workshops. They’re there to give the student perspective on the different topics presented at the workshops. Along with finding the peers at those designated locations, students can reach them by phone, meal or even like them on Facebook.
The program is full-staffed right now so unfortunately students who are interested in becoming a peer mentor are out of luck for now. But a perspective student worker can apply through the University of Hawai‘i’s Student Employment website hawaii.edu/sece as a Student Success Peer Mentor Level 1, and from there students can submit their resume to Uechi. This way when a job opening arises, the prospective student can be contacted then. Uechi urges students to talk to the peer mentors because that is what they are there for and they are more than happy to help.
“I just want people to know that we are here for them and take advantage of our services,” she said, “because we want to help the students and we want to make this a successful experience.”