Meet Mercy Aryee, a twenty-nine-year-old computer science major at Mount Wachusett Community College. She began her journey at MWCC in January of 2022 and has since excelled towards her educational goals. She has undergone leadership training as part of the SUCCESS Scholar Mentorship Program and now works to help other students become successful.
“I went through two training sessions with the SUCCESS Program and then I applied to be a mentor because I have the passion and the motivation to help people. Throughout all the struggles and experiences I have had at MWCC, I feel like I can help and relate to other students”, says Aryee.
Mercy currently mentors two students and is looking forward to the opportunity to increase her number of mentee’s next semester.
“It can be challenging being a student mentor because you’re working on your own classwork as well as helping other students,” Mercy expresses the importance of having good time management skills. She adds that being a mentor “involves a lot of time because you have to structure and schedule your time and fit mentoring into it. If you are not on top of your game, you can’t help other students. It’s a lot of balance.”
While focusing on her own coursework, Mercy likes to structure her study time by setting alarms on her phone to break up her studying into increments. She also likes to sprinkle-in motivation for herself, for example allowing herself limited time on social media between assignments or enjoying her favorite snack. She recommends that others try “attaching conditions to your learning” to help keep you motivated while completing assignments.
Mercy understands the importance of voicing her needs when she struggles and encourages other students to do the same. “Just ask questions, don’t feel like the questions you ask are stupid or irrelevant, if it pops in your mind and you feel like it’s become an issue, just voice it out. Try not to keep things to yourself, there’s so many resources around, there’s so many different people that you can talk to, just voice it out” says Aryee.
One of her favorite aspects of attending MWCC is the availability of resources and the willingness of faculty and staff to help students. “My favorite part is that you are able to have many resources at your fingertips, you can just send an email, or walk to any of the offices and everyone is willing to help”, says Mercy.
Mercy will be graduating with her Associate Degree in Computer Science next semester and plans to transfer to Fitchburg State University to work towards her bachelor’s degree. In the next five years, she would like to complete her bachelor’s and work in the information technology field at a top company. She strongly encourages students who are struggling to “Ask more questions. I was trying to struggle to do things on my own and then I realized that there are solutions everywhere”, says Mercy.