Ensuring Student Success One Student at a Time.

Hi, my name is Kierstin, and I’m a coordinator at Momentum for 11th-grade students. I’m a junior at Rice University majoring in English and History, and I want to be a high school teacher after graduation. I found Momentum through a program at Rice called America Reads. To be honest, I didn’t have much prior knowledge about Momentum before I applied to America Reads, but I have enjoyed my time as a coordinator so far!

As a coordinator for the Leadership Academy, I work one-on-one with 12 students, which has been an awesome experience so far! As far as the nuts and bolts of the Leadership Academy are concerned, I meet with my students once a month to talk about a topic specific to that month, like financial aid or college fly-ins. I also use this time to chat about any issues or exciting news they may have encountered since our last meeting. Then, I discuss the monthly topic with my students further at a monthly group meeting, which students in the Leadership Academy are encouraged to attend.

Another part of the Leadership Academy involves encouraging students to attend a couple of college info sessions and Career Conversations that Momentum hosts. For clarification, these events are definitely accessible for any student — not just Leadership Academy participants — to take advantage of. To help my students in the Leadership Academy, I’ve recently been going through old recordings to find info sessions or Career Conversations that I know my students would appreciate and sharing those with them.

The best part about working at Momentum in my experience has been the individual monthly meetings with my students. Every student has different goals and interests, and the low student-to-mentor ratio at Momentum has allowed me to focus my attention on my students as individuals. I’m able to offer better advice and support because I know my students pretty well, which makes me feel like I’m actually helping them when we meet.

One of the other cool things about working as a mentor at the Leadership Academy is that the low student-to mentor ratio allows mentors the flexibility to brainstorm new ways to help their students. This has made the Leadership Academy into something that is constantly evolving into an even better resource for students. For example, my idea to search through old recordings and send them to certain students only occurred to me because I wasn’t trying to juggle too much at once. In addition to the flexibility given to its teammates, Momentum welcomes new ideas with open arms. Together, its flexibility and openness to ideas create a really generative environment that I’ve appreciated a ton.

Thank you, Kierstin! We appreciate all that you do for Momentum Education, keep up the good work!