Volunteering as a Peer Assisted Writing Mentor

I began volunteering as a Peer Assisted Writing (PAW) mentor during the winter of my second year at the University of Calgary. At the time, I was deciding what degree to pursue while also trying to feel more involved on campus. Participating in PAW has helped me to feel involved on campus and allowed me to explore my interests and strengths as a student. Eventually, declaring as an English major with a Spanish minor.

Building Community

First, and maybe most obviously, PAW became a way I met people and made friends on campus. Our campus community is very large (more than 30,000 students attend across five campuses!) so meeting people can be hard and intimidating, especially in large first and second year courses. My fellow PAW mentors have become some of the people that I have known for the longest while studying at the University of Calgary. They are always eager to give advice on my latest essays or to tell me about what they’re studying that week, and together we have made an interdisciplinary community of support that I look forward to seeing during PAW sessions. 

Supporting Peers and Shared Learning

Working as a PAW mentor, I have been able to work with students across ages and faculties. Not only have I been able to help students who are looking for writing assistance, but I also can learn from the students that I work with. Once you declare as a major in any department, it can be easy to forget what is happening in other departments, even within your own faculty. As an English major, working with Biology, Sociology, Engineering, and Education majors means that I get to meet students I might not otherwise get to know. It also means we get the chance to share things we learned in our disciplines with each other. I have learned about the norms of scientific writing from Biology and Chemistry majors; I have learned about how engineers think about explaining their projects with words; and I have learned about how Law and Society majors need to convey their arguments clearly and concisely. Writing is important to every discipline, in some way, and PAW and Writers’ Space sessions help students from all areas of study teach and learn from each other. 

Growing as a Writer

Even though, on the surface, it seems like much of my time at PAW is spent helping others with their writing, I was surprised to find after my first semester of PAW volunteering that my writing had improved as well. PAW training teaches mentors several strategies for helping other students improve and self-edit their writing, and we work on everything from sentence structure to citation forms in our training workshops. Even though I guess I knew that I would learn things from these sessions, I was surprised to see myself applying the strategies we learned without even thinking. Things like editing out loud (scary I know!) and breaking down my writing to avoid run on sentences have become second nature to me, even when I’m not leading a PAW session. In the almost two years since I began volunteering with PAW my writing has absolutely improved because of PAW’s role in my studies. PAW supplements my classes and helps fill in the writing skills gaps that are sometimes hard to find when you’re in the midst of a busy semester and trying to do your best on assignments. 

Building for the Future

PAW has also helped me prepare for my future in ways that look good on paper. As part of the leadership training program, PAW offers Digital Badges that hep track your progress and training as a mentor. These badges are not only nice to collect but are also valuable things to list on a résumé or CV when you apply for jobs, graduate school, or for scholarships. Besides the obvious fact I will be taking my PAW writing skills with me after I leave the University of Calgary, having my work with PAW on my résumé is giving me an extra leg up as I apply for graduate school and jobs in the next phase of my life.