Maryville Peer Tu­tors Of­fer Free Fi­nals Week Help

It’s fair to say that many of us con­sider fi­nals week to be the hard­est week of the se­mes­ter. Syn­ony­mous terms typ­i­cally in­clude stress, over-caf­feina­tion and lack of sleep. Maryville Uni­ver­si­ty’s peer tu­tors are work­ing to change that by of­fer­ing free on-cam­pus fi­nals help April 25, 27 and 28.

Sam Gavic, a Maryville Uni­ver­sity Life Coach, leads the on-cam­pus tu­tor­ing pro­gram to help fa­cil­i­tate the hir­ing of tu­tors and post-hire suc­cess. 

“Peer tu­tor­ing is face-to-face, one-on-one tu­tor­ing with an­other stu­dent who has done well in a class,” said Gavic.

Ac­cord­ing to Gavic, the dif­fer­ence be­tween peer tu­tor­ing and tra­di­tional tu­tor­ing is that peers are able to es­tab­lish a re­la­tion­ship al­low­ing growth and ex­tra sup­port the en­tire way through.

Gavic also ex­pressed a de­sire to dis­pel com­mon mis­con­cep­tions sur­round­ing tu­tor­ing.

“I think peer tu­tor­ing is of­ten thought of when a stu­dent is strug­gling. We want peo­ple to get tu­tored all the way through [the class]. Hav­ing some­one to be there along the way is a ma­jor re­lief,” said Gavic.

Mady Mi­ana, a third-year Vi­sual Arts ma­jor and peer tu­tor, be­lieves that the small com­mu­nity and peer as­pects help en­sure a bet­ter ex­pe­ri­ence for each per­son com­ing in for help. 

“Our tu­tors are here to en­sure that stu­dents re­ceive the help they need in all sub­jects… Maryville is a small and sup­port­ive com­mu­nity and our tu­tors are of no ex­cep­tion. Tu­tors have a gen­uine care and pas­sion for the tu­tor­ing work we of­fer our peers be­cause we em­pathize with them, which makes our ser­vices ef­fec­tive,” said Mi­ana.

Ac­cord­ing to Gavic, the style of the tu­tor­ing sys­tem here sur­prised him be­cause it dif­fered greatly from tu­tor­ing at his un­der­grad­u­ate school. Tu­tor­ing at his col­lege was done in groups and stu­dents did­n’t have the abil­ity to study alone with an in­di­vid­ual tu­tor. 

“I think Maryville’s style al­lows re­la­tion­ships and there­fore, bet­ter learn­ing,” said Gavic.

As stu­dents, it can be easy to take for granted the cus­tomiz­able and in­di­vid­u­al­ized as­pects at Maryville. How­ever, it’s im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that it’s a rare gift to be tu­tored this way.

“I think the tu­tor­ing of­fice re­flects the cur­rent cul­ture of Maryville’s in­cred­i­ble stu­dent-to-tu­tor ra­tio. Odds of a tu­tor be­ing matched to the re­quested class at the de­sired time is high. Our cus­tomer ser­vice rate is great, and we are al­ways will­ing to work with stu­dents to en­sure that their needs are met in a timely man­ner,” said Gavic.
 

Part of ac­com­plish­ing that goal is to of­fer tu­tor­ing for as many classes as pos­si­ble. Gavic es­ti­mated that about 126 courses are cov­ered, and said that stu­dents can sched­ule a ses­sion on­line here. If read­ers are in­ter­ested in at­tend­ing a fi­nals ses­sion, they are wel­come at the fol­low­ing dates and times: Thurs­day, April 25, from 5-9 p.m.; Sat­ur­day, April 27 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and Sun­day, April 28, from 2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. All ses­sions will take place in the li­brary and the im­age be­low pro­vides de­tails on classes avail­able for tu­tor­ing at each time.   

“Fi­nals is a time of in­tense stress and heavy work­loads, and it’s im­por­tant that Maryville stu­dents know they aren’t alone in their en­deav­ors to study and com­plete their fi­nal as­sign­ments. We also serve as a re­minder that a sig­nif­i­cant el­e­ment of good work­man­ship and suc­cess is know­ing when to ask for help,” said Mi­ana.

With fi­nals right around the cor­ner, take time this week to pre­pare and ask for help if needed!