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Find out more about what the peer mentoring scheme is and what to expect from it.

What is peer mentoring?

Peer mentoring is our way of helping new students to settle into their first year. It gives you the opportunity to meet other students on your course, find out more about life on campus and get support adjusting to a new study environment.

Run by students, for students   

The peer mentoring scheme was set up by our students following a consultation to find out what support new students needed when adjusting to university life. The scheme is managed by a Natural Sciences student (peer mentor leader), who is supported by staff from the Natural Sciences Office. All of the peer mentors are current Natural Science students who volunteer to take part in the scheme because they feel they benefited from having a mentor when they started. 

How does it work?

All first-year students are put into small groups with two mentors from the second, third or fourth years. Mentors are assigned based on overlapping subjects so while they might not have studied exactly the same stream as you in the first year between them, they will have studied some or all of the subjects which you are studying.

Peer mentors know what it is like to be a new student at Nottingham and they can help you through the process by sharing their experience. You will receive details of who your specific mentors are a week before you start so you can get in touch and ask any questions you have. You will see your mentors a few times over the welcome weeks at orientation activities including the first mentoring session, scavenger hunt and family fun day. 

Over the course of your first year, you will have meetings with your mentors regularly to discuss how things are going. They can offer you lots of useful advice about things like getting to grips with university life, finding your way around, making friends, starting lab work, your first coursework assignments, module choice and finding accommodation for the next year.  Outside of this, your mentors will check in regularly by text or WhatsApp to make sure you are doing ok, and you will likely also run into them at social events run by NatSci Soc.