What is a Linguistics Mentor?
One of the things that can be intimidating about exploring linguistics is that it is a smaller field that is not taught in high schools and for which there are fewer materials online than there are for other fields. This means that the course material can be very unfamiliar, and it can be overwhelming to find help. In an effort to make assistance more accessible to students and to build community within the department, we employ experienced linguistics students to serve as mentors for various classes (all Intro to Linguistics classes, and other technical classes in the major, e.g. Syntax, Phonology, Phonetics, Corpus Linguistics, etc).
What can I expect from my Linguistics Mentors?
Linguistics mentors are experienced students who are employed to help you navigate the course you are taking. All Mentors can assist Intro to Ling students, but for more specialized courses there are often only a subset of mentors available; see the Linguistics Mentor Hours for details on what expertise is represented on which days.
An important point is that Mentors are not professors, and they are not TAs (teaching assistants). Since they often serve multiple sections of a course, they may not know your specific course schedule, and they may have never seen the assignment that you’re working on, either. Given then limitations, the professors actively counsel our mentors to say “I don’t know” when they don’t know something; it’s entirely possible that you will have questions that your mentor doesn’t know the answer to (and has no way that they could have known the answer to).
So, what can you expect from mentors? You can expect assistance solving problem sets from people who have solved more problem sets than you have. You can expect guidance understanding concepts from people who have previously puzzled over the same or similar concepts. You can expect technical assistance (with both theory, and technology) from students who previously had to navigate similar technical issues. For writing courses, you can expect help with constructing linguistic arguments and formatting linguistic diagrams from students who have had to accomplish the same things previously. Students consistently report that Mentor Hours are crucial to helping them learn the material, solve hard problems, and learn technical aspects of theory and writing.
And in the event that you have a set of questions that stump the mentor as well, a mentor can help you navigate that situation: what do you do when you can’t figure it out? They can help connect you to a professor, or to another mentor with more experience in that area. So don’t expect mentors to always be able to help to solve any problem or puzzle. They are simply one more resource among the others available in your course (including your professor) that can help you navigate the course.
That said, they usually can help you figure things out! And beyond that, we find that students coming together to work together during mentor hours is a crucial element of the educational experience in our department. So we encourage you to attend even simply as a way to find peers in your course working on the same things. Many students simply come to work in that space, even when they don’t have specific questions for a mentor.
Who are the Mentors right now?
Momo Schmidt is the Head Mentor for Spring 2024, if you have questions about mentors, you can contact her at mschmidt6222@scrippscollege.edu.
|
Mentor |
Subject |
Day |
|
John Paul |
Intro |
Sunday, 6-8 PM |
|
Alexandra |
Intro |
Sunday, 6-8 PM |
|
Maralina |
Intro |
Monday, 6-8 PM |
|
Isabela |
Intro |
Monday, 6-8 PM |
|
Janice |
Intro |
Tuesday, 6-8 PM |
|
Marley |
Intro |
Tuesday, 6-8 PM |
|
Momo |
Intro |
Wednesday, 6-8 PM |
| Charis | Intro |
Wednesday, 6-8 PM |
| Aisulu | Intro |
Thursday, 6-8 PM |
| Aditi | Intro |
Thursday, 6-8 PM |
When are the Linguistics Mentor hours?
Mentor hours are generally 6pm-8pm, and are held in the LGCS Projects Room (Edmunds 215), the room with computers and white boards right at the entrance to our department suite in Edmunds building. Specific hours vary by semester.
Spring 2024 hours: Sunday-Thursday 6-8PM.
Join the LGCS Linguistics Mentoring Slack Channel in order to view the most current updates about sessions.
If you have an existing Slack account, search for “linguistics-mentoring” under the “Channel Browser”.
If you do not have an existing Slack account, please email Wendy.Mcnerney@pomona.edu and she will send you an invitation to create an account.