TY Mentors at Bridge21
The Bridge21 primary school programme is currently taking place. This involves a series of one day workshops for primary school students. One interesting element of the programme is that some of the transition year students who have taken part in the Bridge2College programme earlier in the year get the chance to to come back and work as mentors for the younger students. It is an opportunity to share what they have learned both from a technical point of view and in working as a team, making decisions and completing projects to a deadline. We asked two of the TY students to talk about the experience. This is what they wrote…..
“We first arrived at the front of Trinity College with our class not knowing what we were doing. Over the course of the week, we were given projects to do by Kevin such as making videos, advertisements and radio ads. We learned a lot in a short space of time such as how to use certain programs on a computer, how to make a film and how to work in teams which was a completely new thing for us.
Nearly 8 months later, with 3 weeks of being at Bridge21 behind us, we would be put on the other side of the experience. After getting accepted we had our training day. This was a one off thing that we did on a Thursday, with everyone that would be mentoring. We all met up and got a rundown of how our week was going to go. We all found out who we were mentoring with during our week, and as well as making our own video to recap on the computer programmes such as Windows Movie Maker and Audacity.
6 of us each had a different group of primary school children every day. We all had teams of around five every day. We did a different theme most days of the week, such as a news report of a historic event (J.F.K assassination, V.E Day, etc), making an advertisement for a futuristic invention and one day, the kids had complete freedom with their videos.
Now, the difference from being a student at Bridge21 to being a mentor is bigger than most people would think. First thing that we noticed is that it was tiring, so tiring that we went home and had 2-hour nap! You have to look after young children constantly. Although it was tiring but it gave us skills that we didn’t get in our first week here.
Another thing you notice is the way people treat you. When you’re a student, you are asking a lot of questions to your mentors, and you have a level of respect for them. Now when you become the mentor, you’re being asked a lot of questions, and you’re the one getting the respect.
We really enjoyed our time being mentors at Bridge21 and would be more than happy to come back if they needed anyone.
Adam & Aaron.
(Transition Year students and Bridge21 mentors)”
