Abstract:

The peer mentoring programme arrived some years ago at Spanish universities and it is becoming consolidated. It aims to achieve a better social and academic integration of the mentored students, while the mentoring students also have the opportunity to acquire generic skills through a complementary and different activity. This type of mentoring has also been implemented in some Faculties and Schools of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, receiving a positive evaluation in all cases.

Currently, six centres have implemented this program on the Albacete Campus. Three of them have been working together in its organisation since the 2019-2020 academic year. These are the School of Computer Engineering, the Faculty of Pharmacy and the Faculty of Law.

This initiative has resulted in a very similar programme in the six centres, although not equivalent. A great deal of flexibility in the programme is required to respect the different points of view and the idiosyncrasies of each of the different disciplines ‒ Economics and Business, Industrial Engineering, Biotechnology, Forestry and Natural Environment Engineering, Agricultural and Agri-food Engineering, Computer Science, Pharmacy, Law and Criminology‒ when necessary. In the beginning of the programme, homogeneity was the general rule, with the training workshops for student mentors being held jointly, which facilitates the relationship between students from different degrees. Subsequently, it was necessary to consider the particularities of each one of the degrees, then the flexibility and autonomy of each one of the centres were effective to solve the needs of "telemachus".

This paper describes how this program is being organised, in which, as we have already mentioned, six centres participate, but which has a common objective: to help first-year students adapt to university life by assigning them a mentor, a student like them but from higher courses, who will serve as a point of reference and information to help them overcome the various difficulties they may encounter in their first year of study. In addition, the results of the final evaluation surveys will be shown, which will include various aspects of opinion and satisfaction with respect to the development and coordination of the Mentoring Program.

Keywords:

Mentoring, coaching, help students.