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The student mentors and ambassadors are there to help you get the most of your summer school experience. They will show you round, take part in activities with you, answer your questions and give you the inside story on student life.
When I first became a Student Ambassador I underwent training, which proved to be really interesting and very social; I met loads of people that were fun and enthusiastic - including some of the people training us! I was a little concerned with the amount we were learning and if I would be able to remember it all, however we were constantly reassured that a lot of it would come naturally to us and we had the support of the other Student Ambassadors (SAs) and other staff if we should need it.
When it came round to actually working on my first summer school I remained enthusiastic until the first day when we were sat waiting for around 200 young people to arrive, and to be honest I did begin to think 'what have I got myself into?' But when they started to arrive and I began meeting the young people I would be spending the week with, my concerns vanished.
We had a group of thirty young people between four SAs that we would be spending the week with. Days consisted of first an informal team meeting with all of the day time ambassadors over breakfast, this informed us of any goings on the previous night that we should know about, but was also a really nice way to start the day and catch up with the other SAs who you get to know very quickly (working with the other SAs to me was one of the most rewarding parts of the work).
The meeting would be followed by running some activities with the young people that gave them more of an idea about student life and a chance to get to know us better, they seemed to enjoy them and were very enthusiastic, which was great. After this there would be a short break and then the rest of the day was filled with academic sessions; which we actively participated in with our group of young people. At the end of the day we would have some more time running activities with our group, sometimes they were exhausted by this point and not always the most willing, especially when they had an eagerly awaited social activity to get to soon after. On these occasions there would be more talk of who was wearing what and if anyone had any good hair straighteners they could borrow, however as SAs we had built a rapport with them and they always came through for us in the end.
As the week went on we got to know our group well and we generally built up a mutual liking and respect for one another; this is what I found to be the most rewarding part of the job, along with seeing them get to know each other and form close friendships in just the week they had together. I was also overwhelmed with how our attention and interest meant so much to them.
On the final day of the summer school all of the young people had to give a presentation to a large audience made up of friends and family. As SAs our role was to aid them in preparations and organisation for this, but they were to come up with their own ideas and perform it themselves. After initial reluctance, bought on from tiredness and the thought of leaving their new friends, they got stuck in, worked very hard, and did us proud. After the ceremony deemed as 'Summer School Graduation' they were all very emotional and said their goodbyes before leaving for home.
The week proved to be extremely rewarding for me in many respects, and despite a huge amount of tiredness it was both enjoyable and extremely worthwhile, all in all I would recommend it to others.
Jessica
Summer School Student Ambassador (2006)
Lancaster University
