The Thunder Bolt

Concordia’s National Honor Society has the Buddy System, which pairs members of the NHS with freshmen to help guide them through their first year of high school. 
 
The project provides our newest high schoolers with another point of contact when they have questions or concerns that an experienced high school student can answer. 
 
The Bolt spoke with project founder, Meleyna, and some of her NHS peers, Linh and Bao Nhi, about their plans and visions for the project. 
 
Meleyna: 

“Reflecting on how nervous and jittery I was for my freshman year and how starting virtually must be even more nerve-wracking for the current freshman, I had a ‘lightbulb!’ moment: create a project to relieve some of those potential anxieties and also provide a safe space for underclassmen to ask questions or air out concerns.” 
 
“My Student Ambassador training has prepared me well for a project like this. I feel very blessed to have the resources and supportive community to be able to kickstart a project like this. My biggest goal is to create meaningful and substantial outcomes through this project. I am very excited to see where it goes.” 
 
“This year, being the guinea pig year, has added some major additional roadblocks. Being online is so hard to go through the due process and distribute information. It would also be so much easier to connect with the freshmen if we were physically on campus. Of course, I'm hoping this project can continue and expand over the next few years after I've graduated.” 
 
Bao Nhi (Julia): 

“It is my pleasure to be able to help start the Buddy System for our grade 9 students.” 
 
“I think this project is a great opportunity for upperclassmen to give useful advice specific to the needs of each freshman, at the same time building new relationships and supporting each other through the tough stages of high school.” 
 
“Since this project has just started rather recently, we haven't gotten to the first checkpoint of our plan yet, but I can tell you that we are all super in on it and giving our best to help the 9th graders, and just have fun with them!” 

“During the project, quite a few grade 9 students have come to us with questions specifically about academics. So I think it would be great if, in the future, the project can have a department that specializes in this field, similar to a tutoring group. This way each freshman can indicate subjects they need help with or just general concerns about academics, and we can better assist them. Furthermore, if we do have a tutoring group in the Buddy System, it can potentially be also an ASA activity which would work both online and offline.”
 
“Personally, I'm having a lot of fun talking to the 9th grader that I'm assigned to. We have definitely known each other better already, and hopefully I am giving her some positive influence like I feel that I am. I hope that our passion to help the freshmen can be recognized by more students so they will all know that the Buddy System has a lot of people who will gladly help them with any problems in school and in life, in hope that we can make their high school journeys more enjoyable.” 
 
Linh: 

“The Buddy System is an amazing opportunity for upperclassmen to act as mentors for our freshmen, even though our project is in its guinea pig year. NHS members signed up quickly to participate, and this speaks volume to just how friendly and accepting our Concordia community is.” 
 
“Although the freshmen participation rates are not as high as we had expected, I would still consider it a success in that there's a willingness to give this a try from both our NHS members and our youngest students in the high school program.” 
 
“Adjusting to high school online and communicating through emails might not work as well as hearing about the project in person. Moving forward - especially when we can finally return to on-campus learning, I hope more freshmen will participate.” 
 
“I think our shared vision for the Buddy System is that it can expand from just the NHS members, to any upperclassmen interested in mentoring the new freshmen class.” 
 
“Personally, I want to look into better ways to effectively promote and communicate about the project. Perhaps we can even work with our other student organizations like STUCO or SLC to welcome our freshmen and make it less intimidating for them. “It seems that improving communication is a common theme in all the projects I'm involved in this year.”