Hi SHARE-members,

My name is Julia van Marrewijk, I’m 21 years old and currently in my third year of the bachelor Health Policy and Management at ESHPM. Besides studying at ESHPM, I am also an ambassador, I’m participating in the education council for the bachelor, I give workgroups to pre-master students and last but not least I’m a mentor for freshmen. Furthermore, I love to spend time with my friends or play sports.

In my first bachelor year I had a very nice mentor, whom helped me a lot with the beginning of my studies. In my first year, I already thought, in my third year I also want to become a mentor. At the end of my second year, I received an email about mentorship. If I was interested in becoming a mentor, I had to send a motivation letter and my CV. After the interviews, a number of students were selected to become a mentor, including me! As a mentor you are the point of contact for the freshmen. You also make sure that the students get to know the university, online as well as offline. Besides that, you give some work groups and you have some chats with the students about their well-being and how they’re doing in their first year.

Due to COVID-19, many students attach great value to the mentor group. They are new at the university and don’t know a lot of people. As a mentor it is important to create a good atmosphere in the group. The Erasmus University Rotterdam tries to organize as many activities as possible for first-year students on campus. However, some of the activities are online. The introduction day was on campus, this made it easier for the students to get to know each other.

In the first two months of the new academic year, you spend more time on mentorship than in the rest of the year. During the first two months I spent an average of six hours a week on being a mentor. The rest of the year you will occasionally get questions from the students and there will be more mentor conversations.

If you would like to help freshmen during their first year at the university, I would definitely recommend becoming a mentor!