Well Hi!

I'm the scruffy gentleman, so named because I am generally messy in appearance but make an effort to open doors for people. I'm a firm believer in opening doors for people, I'm glad we got past that, that was important.

Ok, so this is my blog as a mentor, I'm going to use it to document my adventures of being a mentor and hopefully if I find anything valuable along the way (which is inevitable when dealing with people) ill share and hey maybe we can all walk away with something useful, I dunno, that's the plan.

My name is Sam Coleman and I started being a mentor in my second year at Newport university. I became a mentor because a lot of people recommended I should and I felt that I would benefit from the training and advice, I genuinely enjoy helping students, making new students feel less AHHHGHH about everything and you know holding doors open, that sort of thing...

I cant speak for all universities but I like how Newport uni is run, I like the community feeling in our university, I like seeing lots of people from different ethnicities and different countries with different beliefs come together and get along, its not always smooth but when it works its really great and here it works a lot, I became a mentor to be a part of that no matter how small my part is.

If you stick with the blog then I warn you I'm going to be pretty honest about what I see and do but you wont hear any details that are personal in any way up here, no names will be used, Ill just say the problem, how I handled it and what I thought afterwards.

 Before being a mentor I thought this would be about helping students work the library out or just having a coffee with a new student and pointing out some nice places to eat but in my few months on the job I've seen some really tough stuff to deal with, stuff that I really didn't expect, stuff that challenged my own thoughts and ideals (yeah that big!) and going through it with the people I've been through it with has definitely changed me as a person, on what I think and how I deal with people. I like to think for the better :)

Its a bigger job than it looks because mostly it is helping someone work out the library or having a coffee but other times it gets big and your dealing with real people having real big problems and more often than not you're their first port of call. Coming out of it though is the jobs real reward, you make your own rewards out of a job right? its more than a pay check.

I got heavy on you there but its important I start with what I think. I promise more pictures of kittens next time to even it out :)

Toodle pip!