Reflecting on 3 Years of Peer Educating
Fall 2023
I feel like every year that I am a peer educator I conduct myself in a very different way, primarily because each cohort is so different from one another. Of course, meeting new students is one of my favorite parts of being a peer educator, but I also think that it has given me challenges in finding out how I can best adjust myself to be a better resource to them. It can be something as small as navigating partner assignments to find out who would be the best person to find an experiential learning activity for someone or as broad as shaping my communication style across a more introverted/extroverted classroom. Either way, I think that one of the main differences between how I conduct myself in teaching now compared to two years ago is that I view teaching as more fluid and less as following an agenda. In my first year, I was really stressed about making sure every single part of my agenda was going to plan, timing everything down to the minute, and checking back over my notes every minute to ensure I didn’t miss anything. While that structure is important, I think to an extent it has to begin acting as a guide since there are so many things that can change or alter in the moment. This year I think I was overall much more relaxed (admittedly partially because it’s content I’ve already done) but also because I’ve learned to teach in the moment and adapt to student questions, what they want to focus on, and acknowledging that what I’ve written on my agenda will not be exactly how class goes – and that’s ok.
Another component of this year – H397 – has also been a tremendously useful experience for me this year. I’ve learned a lot about my own teaching style from my class, and arguably just as much among other fellow PEs. I actually think that spending time with other PEs is one of the main reasons that I became more comfortable with being flexible with student-centered adapting in my regular teaching because leading my PE color group was essentially that concept to the max. All of us already knew the logistical details of the honors program, and since there was far less structure to our group meetings compared to a regular classroom, I essentially just had to make my advice solely dependent on what they requested to have. This freedom and comfortability in learning in a discussion based format rather than a classroom style made me realize the importance of centering what my students wanted to learn, not what I thought they needed to learn.
I think the PE cohort has also been an amazing source of growth for me personally outside of a solely academic context. The close community within the PE cohort gave me many ideas on how I could foster a better community in my H100 section, but it also showed me the nuances of navigating challenging social circumstances. This year, I had to approach situations where people had been left out of social groups, reassure peers feeling anxiety about various topics related to the class, and find my own way to approach the burden of being a leader within a group of peers who I didn’t necessarily always feel like I knew enough to teach them. Regardless, I think having such a welcoming and supportive fellow PE community made developing my skills and role within the cohort much easier.
I think the biggest challenge I faced this quarter was trying to compile and articulate my thoughts after hearing about the potential for the PE program to change drastically next year. Even though I will have graduated, I was a bit surprised at how much I felt impacted by this change. The PE program is something that I’ve just always felt connected me to honors and the UW campus in general. It gave me a sense of purpose in guiding others going through the same journey I did in previous years, and I do think I felt very upset at times knowing that the opportunity I had might not be the same for future PEs. Regardless, I do think having the time to reflect on my thoughts for this was very useful as I need to know how to keep an open mind when it comes to these changes. Acknowledging that this situation was intended to make the program more sustainable for the advisors and leaning on my fellow PEs for just general moral support helped a lot in navigating how I felt about these future changes. All in all, I am thankful for the opportunities that honors has given me, and although some of the changes may make me feel uncomfortable, I have full trust in the honors program and its incredible staff to create an H100 experience that is impactful to both the incoming freshmen and peer educators.
Evening with Neuroscience and BenDin
Spring 2023
Many of the RSOs I have been involved with have focused on having a single flagship event to promote within the community. In this quarter, that happened to line up with both of my RSOs, with our Benefit Dinner “BenDin” for GlobeMed and our Evening with Neuroscience “EWN” for Grey Matters. Both have posed significant challenges for me in managing to coordinate so many different moving parts to ensure a positive experience for everyone, including both planning leadership and community participants. As such, I believe it has also taught me a lot about how to work together as a team, and even just how to find social enjoyment out of doing these volunteer-based activities. I am happy to be surrounded by so many different people with unique passions and talents to give to these events. I am happy to say that both this year were a success, with both funds raised and attendees raised throughout the quarter.
Peer Advising with Honors
Spring 2023
I’ve been a peer educator for three consecutive years now, but this was still a very unique experience for me. As a peer advisor, I had much more personal 1-on-1 conversations with honors students than I might have with my introductory H100 classes. I worked with people to craft schedules, hear about their life events, and discuss future career goals. Furthermore, I had the chance to work directly with much of the honors program staff directly, giving me a glimpse into all the work that goes behind the scenes to give us the experience that we all go through in honors. Although I am not able to continue as a peer advisor, I am looking forward to continuing being a resource to my fellow honors students in whatever way that I can.
UW Neurology Day
Spring 2023
For the most part, with Grey Matters being a completely undergraduate run neuroscience journal, it becomes difficult to connect with communities outside of that age range despite it being part of our mission. As such, it was really exciting to many of us to finally have this incredible opportunity to present our poster at the annual UW Neurology Day event, where we got to present directly to clinical neurologists about our work and even be spotlighted by the head of neurology. It was incredibly gratifying to have the work we have done acknowledged, and I am truly thankful that UW Neurology has put so much effort into supporting its undergraduate students.
Learning my Teaching Style as a Peer Educator
Fall 2022
I feel like every year that I am a peer educator I conduct myself in a very different way, primarily because each cohort is so different from one another. Of course, meeting new students is one of my favorite parts of being a peer educator, but I also think that it has given me challenges in finding out how I can best adjust myself to be a better resource to them. It can be something as small as navigating partner assignments to find out who would be the best person to find an experiential learning activity for someone or as broad as shaping my communication style across a more introverted/extroverted classroom. Either way, I think that one of the main differences between how I conduct myself in teaching now compared to two years ago is that I view teaching as more fluid and less as following an agenda. In my first year, I was really stressed about making sure every single part of my agenda was going to plan, timing everything down to the minute, and checking back over my notes every minute to ensure I didn’t miss anything. While that structure is important, I think to an extent it has to begin acting as a guide since there are so many things that can change or alter in the moment. This year I think I was overall much more relaxed (admittedly partially because it’s content I’ve already done) but also because I’ve learned to teach in the moment and adapt to student questions, what they want to focus on, and acknowledging that what I’ve written on my agenda will not be exactly how class goes – and that’s ok.
Another component of this year – H397 – has also been a tremendously useful experience for me this year. I’ve learned a lot about my own teaching style from my class, and arguably just as much among other fellow PEs. I actually think that spending time with other PEs is one of the main reasons that I became more comfortable with being flexible with student-centered adapting in my regular teaching because leading my PE color group was essentially that concept to the max. All of us already knew the logistical details of the honors program, and since there was far less structure to our group meetings compared to a regular classroom, I essentially just had to make my advice solely dependent on what they requested to have. This freedom and comfortability in learning in a discussion based format rather than a classroom style made me realize the importance of centering what my students wanted to learn, not what I thought they needed to learn.
I think the PE cohort has also been an amazing source of growth for me personally outside of a solely academic context. The close community within the PE cohort gave me many ideas on how I could foster a better community in my H100 section, but it also showed me the nuances of navigating challenging social circumstances. This year, I had to approach situations where people had been left out of social groups, reassure peers feeling anxiety about various topics related to the class, and find my own way to approach the burden of being a leader within a group of peers who I didn’t necessarily always feel like I knew enough to teach them. Regardless, I think having such a welcoming and supportive fellow PE community made developing my skills and role within the cohort much easier.
I think the biggest challenge I faced this quarter was trying to compile and articulate my thoughts after hearing about the potential for the PE program to change drastically next year. Even though I will have graduated, I was a bit surprised at how much I felt impacted by this change. The PE program is something that I’ve just always felt connected me to honors and the UW campus in general. It gave me a sense of purpose in guiding others going through the same journey I did in previous years, and I do think I felt very upset at times knowing that the opportunity I had might not be the same for future PEs. Regardless, I do think having the time to reflect on my thoughts for this was very useful as I need to know how to keep an open mind when it comes to these changes. Acknowledging that this situation was intended to make the program more sustainable for the advisors and leaning on my fellow PEs for just general moral support helped a lot in navigating how I felt about these future changes. All in all, I am thankful for the opportunities that honors has given me, and although some of the changes may make me feel uncomfortable, I have full trust in the honors program and its incredible staff to create an H100 experience that is impactful to both the incoming freshmen and peer educators.
Moderating Global Challenges
Fall 2022
Perhaps one of the most stressful yet incredibly rewarding activities I have done in college has been the opportunity to moderate this year’s Global Challenges event. I can still remember vividly the excitement (and therefore, also stress) I felt throughout this entire process, imagining conversing with highly respected leaders among an audience of hundreds of my fellow students at UW. Even more so, I am grateful for the exposure I had into planning what seems like a relatively straightforward event. While this event boils down to a faculty discussion, I had some very insightful conversations with many honors faculty members about how to set the proper tone throughout the evening, what my role as a student representative would be, and even more simply how I could steel myself as a confident public speaker. Overall I felt that this event went very well, and although there were a few hiccups, I am extremely grateful to have had such a unique experience in learning more about some incredible speakers.
Being a Leader Through Change
Fall 2022
This year I took on a particularly difficult challenge in a club that I have been in since my first quarter as a freshman. I have loved every bit of GlobeMed, from the community to our tangible impact across the world. For this reason, I decided to run as a Co-President and won in a general election. However, soon after in the start of the school year, I received a very disheartening message from national GlobeMed HQ detailing how it was shutting down due to financial burdens. I was devastated that much of what we did would no longer be supported, and much of what we worked towards would need to be changed or eliminated. As such, this journey of redefining what this club does and its mission has been an incredibly difficult process. We lost membership due to the reduction in our global status, we were unable to properly fundraise due to a lack of a 501c3 status, and on top of all that, it was clear that the morale of some of our leadership had begun to falter as well. I wanted more than anything for this club to survive through such a drastic change, so I began suggesting new events, revitalized our communications over discord with weekly discussion topics, held 1-on-1s to support and encourage all of our leadership, and altered our committee structures to enable more broad participation among lower total members. While I cannot realistically say we were thriving through all of this process, I am happy that we have regained our footing and have steadily increasing membership despite our setbacks. As a team, I am hopeful that we can continue revamping this club into something that we all love!
Peer Educating: Round 2
Spring 2022
Over the past two years, I have learned many things about myself. One of which is that I love teaching. Whether it be giving a presentation on global health, teaching neuroscience to high schoolers, or leading H100 for the incoming freshman students, leadership in education is something that truly excites me. Although H397 is primarily aimed towards preparing me for teaching the introductory honors class next fall just as I did last fall, I've still learned tons of broadly applicable skills with a unique perspective of having taught this class before with my own lesson plans.
The first of which would be how to deal with harsh situations as a leader. Last quarter I had many particular situations that I hadn’t expected, such as tailoring my class to still be relevant to a student planning on dropping out of the honors program or students expressing symptoms of anxiety after the four year plan assignment. When I had done this assignment, I found it extremely useful and actually enjoyed doing it, so to hear this from many of my students was surprising as much as it was a wake up call to consider things not just from my own perspective, but also the perspective of the rest of the class. Throughout H397, I’ve had many opportunities to apply this thought to various scenarios, such as preparing myself to deal with a student saying a particularly harmful comment that requires me to ask them to leave the room. I’ve spent much of this quarter considering how this would negatively impact the atmosphere of the classroom as well as how to minimize it. But the worse scenario would be to put myself in a student’s shoes and imagine how they would feel if something hurtful was said and nothing was done to address it. As a leader, I believe that utilizing this applied perspective of putting my students’ views in line with my inherently biased views as an educator (and relatively new student of the honors program) is critical for my growth as a conscientious leader.
Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to develop much of my community teaching skills throughout the course by observing the methods of other fellow peer educators. Keeping in line of the theme of putting myself in others’ shoes, being able to see their fresh perspectives on something as simple as how they format their presentation slides to something as complex as navigating issues in student identity in the classroom as been incredibly useful to improving my own lesson plans. One particular instance that comes to mind was an activity we did during the in person retreat (which we were unable to have my first year as a peer educator due to COVID) where we took scenarios and labeled them as either “institutionally-oriented/student-oriented” and “race-conscious/race-blind” on a graph. We proceeded to have discussion on where we would put each situation on the graph, which led to a lot of insight in how differently I might perceive handling race-related issues compared to other peer educators. But the thing that stuck out most to me was the fact that the conversation extended beyond the original lesson plan and also into redefining the categories, switching “race-conscious” to “race-aware” because of how it revealed our own personal confusion in understanding such a difficult topic. Doing this activity, among many others throughout the quarter, showed me that equitable teaching is not just saying that racism is bad and avoid it, but that there are grey areas that require more nuanced thinking than this to ensure we avoid the most harm and provide the most welcoming environment.
These are just a few snapshots of some of the most impactful moments of what I experienced this quarter that added onto what I learned last year, but there were lots of other experiences such as observing differences in lesson plan structure and understanding why the advisors made said changes (i.e. eliminating end of quarter presentations), seeing the environment that the other peer educators make for their icebreakers, or reflecting on making new lesson plans after remembering things I had to change in the moment last year or that didn’t work out properly. Overall, my general takeaway is that teaching can always be improved and some of the greatest improvements (at least for me) have been applying my own experiences and anticipations to inform the changes that I make for my next class.
High School Outreach with Brain Dissections!
Spring 2022
Grey Matters Journal was the first club that I joined since arriving on campus, and it makes me ecstatic that I had the opportunity to help create a STEM outreach initiative with the help of UW's high school GEAR UP program! As the newly appointed outreach director, I have now had the chance to interact with hundreds of students at 7 different high schools with two goals: 1) Provide resources and engagement to get high schoolers interested and able to enter STEM or neuroscience related fields and 2) promote diversity among research communities.
It really is truly incredible to tell a student about how their brain works or give stories about people such as Phineas Gage after he survived a metal rod through his skull and then have their eyes light up with question after question in response. We are now looking forward to being a part of a week-long summer camp in collaboration with Wise Camps!
Volunteering at UW Farms & Pantry
Fall 2021
This school year, I was elected to be the Director of Local Partnerships, with my primary responsibility being to work with other RSOs and local organizations to coordinate volunteer-led events! We went to many locations, including Roots young adult shelter, the UW pantry, the UW farm (seen to the right) and to Community Lunch in Capitol Hill! What I've found is that volunteering with these organizations is 1) an incredible way to make friends and have fun at the same time and 2) it is super easy to get involved! Just one email and most places were happy to have us come help out.
Balancing "Peer" and "Educator"
Fall 2021
Before I enrolled in being a peer educator last spring, my impression of my job and what it means to be a leader was to show a bullet point set of things to memorize and answer questions. After all, I was a freshman just last year and with COVID forcing virtual intro sessions, there isn’t much a leader can do anyways besides make themselves available. However, I’ve realized that my concept of what a leader needs to be is not at all what I originally imagined, which left out many crucial aspects of what I’ve done to consider myself a leader for my students. For example, the first example of a “leader” that pops into mind to most students here at UW is a professor for one of their courses. Obviously, I don’t disagree, but the main point that I see in this fact is we see leaders as people who are older with expertise in some area of study. I feel like in some ways this deemphasizes the importance of peers as leaders, since while we are not much older, we do have expertise in a more generalized sense of “surviving” college. Essentially what I’m saying is that I think a leader doesn’t have to be a professor of sorts. They can be anyone who can offer support in not just academic disciplines, but also moral and experiential support as a friend.
Many of the skills that I have learned these last few months I see as transferrable to how I want to be a leader in the future. I think the most important aspect of a leader is not in a managerial task like distributing work to people, but rather being able to earn the respect of those who you are leading. They need to have a reason to trust me as a leader and listen to what I have to say. In my case, as a peer educator I need to present myself as a relatable figure who has gone through the same experiences that they are about to go into. If I can’t accomplish that, there isn’t much of a point to having a peer educator compared to more lectures from the honors advisers. As such, I want to be perceived as a leader that is far from being a boss, but rather a friend who wants to share their experiences for the growth of those who I am leading.
There were also many times for reflection throughout the course that I was able to grow, learn, and adapt to situations that were presented to me. For example, my pre-quarter reflection I believe I nailed the areas of self growth that I would need to specifically pay attention to (adaptability, communication, and critical thinking). In addition to the constant focus in keeping track of time during sections, making sure I get all announcements done (many of which I forgot and had to ad din a post-section email), and many other small tasks, I had many particularly challenging moments where I had to employ all three of these elements. For example, I had a few students who I became slightly concerned about since they seemed slightly less engaged within the section and I had to balance when I should give them space, when I should contact them, and when I should alert the advisers. All of the times I alerted the advisers though, I was happy to see that the students in question had already discussed their concerns with them, meaning that they were actively searching for help. Furthermore, I learned many novel ideas from both my PE check-in and H397 course on how to keep students engaged by thinking outside the box via new activities (one of which I had to create in a panic a day before the section due to an error in my agenda), directing conversation between themselves and not just directly to me, and deciding the best ways to make myself seem approachable to them so that they would be willing to share any issues/concerns with me. All in all, I think that the constant flux of unexpected events and situations has greatly helped me develop many of my own personal skills.
As someone who is planning on being a returning peer educator next year, I hope to apply the things that I have learned this year into improvements for my students, from more major things like being a bit less intense in my own extroversion (as noted in feedback from my students) to smaller things like scheduling earlier social events and remembering to take a section photo at the last section. Although I feel like this experience went far better than I had actually expected, I still want to make sure I stray away from simply repeating myself next year as I need to force myself to take in the feedback I’ve received to make an even better experience for any future students. Also, in general I want to make sure that I can transfer my leadership skills from here, such as the aforementioned adaptability, communication, and critical thinking skills, to a wide variety of possible leadership positions ranging from my positions in GlobeMed, Grey Matters, or as a squad leader next year in the marching band. Overall, I am confident that my experience this year as a peer educator has been a truly transformative one that has been one of the best decisions I have made since joining UW.
Becoming an Honors Peer Educator
Spring 2021
I entered college at one of the weirdest possible times. I was a scared entering freshman just nine months ago who didn’t even immediately get to move in on campus. I haven’t gotten the experience of being in a library studying for finals, or passing by my friends on my way to class, or even just being able to casually walk over to people in another dorm to say hi. COVID put a huge barrier on all of these activities that would be considered “normal” college life, and as such I question whether or not I can really categorize myself as a rising sophomore in this coming year. Yet here I am, an honors peer educator for the autumn 2021 quarter who is more excited than ever to guide the incoming freshmen to the best of my ability in the context of my experience. Although it was drastically different from what I had expected a year ago from now, preparing for this task has taught me so many valuable lessons.
Adaptability is the first trait that comes to mind. As we accepted our position as a peer educator, we did not even know whether or not we would be doing activities in person or virtually in the fall. Having to craft activities that could be molded into either category if needed added another layer of complexity towards creating lesson plans that would still be engaging in both settings. Outside of COVID-based changes, working with the other peer educators to improve my lesson plans was a great experience because it highlights what I see as an important aspect of being a leader, which is knowing when to follow from other people’s examples or ideas. Each one of us individually already has so many unique ideas and contributions, so pooling them together we not only get a vast amount of things that we can work with, but we can also find the ideas that most resonate with us. As a result, we are able to craft from someone else’s initial idea with our own spin to create an end product that is much higher quality than any one of us alone. I believe this ability needs to be more heavily emphasized through other classes, because I definitely know it was a major component of my learning throughout this spring quarter.
Furthermore, the weekly discussion posts made me see the multidimensionality of teaching an introductory seminar. Being a peer educator has obviously been far more than just repeating quantitative requirements for the honors program. It has been emphasizing inclusivity and equity through differences in race, gender, identity, or even majors. It has been learning about the relevance of the history of UW so that we can translate our experience into improvements for the present and future students. It has been learning how something as simple as a change in mindset can alter someone’s ability to work towards their passion. It has even been simply learning about the importance of reflecting, like I am now, for both my own personal growth and why I should encourage the freshman to. All in all, I believe these deeper complexities in teaching not just raw concepts, but also everything that revolves around them, have been an invaluable experience as I’ve grown through our peer educator training.