With your support, PACC mentors point freshmen toward success
Like many freshmen, Eriifeoluwa (Eri) Adebanji came to East Carolina University without knowing many people.
“A couple of people online but I didn’t know anyone personally,” he said.
That changed quickly when he became part of the Department of Computer Science Peer Academic and Career Coaching Program.
The program pairs senior computer science and software engineering students with new incoming students. These senior mentors help guide the new students as they adjust to classes and college during their first year on campus.
Funded through Pirate Nation Gives donations, the program helps new students navigate personal, academic and career paths through support from mentors who have already experienced life as a freshman computer science student.
And for Adebanji, the program works.
“I wanted to make the best of my time at ECU, so I wanted to make sure I’m able to talk with someone who’s been through the system, knows the things I should be looking out for, knows what I should be doing — basically optimize my experience here,” he said.
Pirate Nation Gives is Wednesday
Pirate Nation Gives is ECU’s annual day of giving. The Peer Academic and Career Coaching Program is just one of many programs and events that help students through your donations. You can donate today to support programs and scholarships and help us unlock $40,000 in bonus donations through our future of innovation challenge by going to the Pirate Nation Gives website.
Adebanji meets regularly with his mentor, Jonathan Walthour, a senior from Modesto, California, who moved to Wendell so he could transfer to ECU. They attended ECU’s Science, Engineering and Technology Job Fair together on Feb. 25, just one of the ways Walthour has helped Adebanji.
“He’s telling me about applying for internships, getting my resume ready, little things about professors, things like that,” Adebanji said. “It’s just to make sure I’m making the best decisions I can, and it’s been incredibly helpful. It’s helped me realize areas that I wasn’t really paying that much attention to that I should be paying more attention to. Just having that source of guidance and advice, it’s been the most beneficial part of the program.”
As an international student from Kumasi, Ghana, Adebanji has relied on Walthour for more than just advice about classes and careers.
“Having someone to talk to, you know, because it’s a different culture, you need to get used to things,” Adebanji said. “You need to understand how things work, how to talk with people. Having someone I could pretty regularly go to talk with, have a conversation with — it’s definitely a little outside of the comfort zone of most people, going to someone that you really don’t know, meeting regularly and everything — but I think it’s definitely worth the experience.”
For mentors like Walthour, the experience also offers benefits.
Jonathan Walthour, left, talks to freshman mentee Eriifeoluwa (Eri) Adebanji in the computer science lab in the Austin Building.
“It’s helped me come out a little bit more of my comfort zone,” he said. “There are some things that I didn’t really necessarily know, especially about being in a leadership position and helping somebody else get through things. So, I am finding that skill, helping them find something, and they help me find something, too.”
Walthour said the program didn’t exist when he arrived at ECU, but he’s glad it does now.
“I like the idea of sharing ideas with someone else — something that I didn’t really have when I came here and started off,” he said. “I didn’t know about the program during my junior year or during my sophomore year. I wish I did, but looking back on it, I just want to give a little bit of extra help to people when they come in.”
Walthour said he found a true sense of community when he attended an ECU football game and decided to transfer. Now that he’s about to graduate, he appreciates his experience as a computer science major.
“It’s been really nice. It’s been really fun,” he said. “I’ve met new people. It’s really nice to get out there and do things that I wasn’t really expecting to do. I only moved here a couple of years ago. I went to a lot of football games here. And after going and experiencing that, I felt more at home here, which is why I decided to come here, and yeah, it’s just been great, to be honest.”
Adebanji has felt that sense of community as well. The PACC program hosted a fall semester social in which students and mentors enjoyed a pizza dinner, some stress-relieving time outside of class and a painting contest.
“The group came together. We were painting. It was fun, and it also helped build that network,” he said.
That fellowship and the advice he has received make the program irreplaceable, he said.
“There are so many things you might not have thought about that they (mentors) would know because they’ve been through the system, and they’re able to help make the best of the experience,” Adebanji said. “There are a lot of reasons why you should join the program, but to bring everything down to one point, it would be the guidance and advice you get. It’s really invaluable.”