Academic Services

The Office of Academic Skills provides Peer Tutoring in 3-ways; one-on- one sessions, Course Mentoring group sessions, and Success Seminar group sessions.

FAQs

Peer Tutoring

We currently offer tutoring in:

Biology
Biochem
Chemistry
Organic Chemistry
Environmental Studies
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology

If you would like to request tutoring in a course that is not currently offered, please contact the OAS. The office will do their best to accommodate these requests. If one of our current tutors is not able to tutor a course, we cannot provide a tutor mid semester due to our hiring and training requirements.

Peer Tutors are students who have completed the course with at least a 3.0 and have a recommendation from a professor in their subject area. Along with great academic standing, professor recommendations, and content knowledge, all Peer Tutors are trained on a regular basis to develop appropriate skills to help students who seek a tutor in their requested subject area.

Course Content tutoring: A form of individual tutoring with one of our peer tutors tailored to the student’s personal academic needs in a specific course.

Academic Skills tutoring: A form of individual tutoring that focuses on study skills, organizing, and time management.

Click on the link below to make an appointment with a content tutor or to view the tutor schedule. All users need to log in with their WAC login username and password. New users will need to make a profile to register before viewing the schedule. Please choose the OAS Peer Tutor center from the drop-down menu.

Make an appointment!

A fellow student who is genuinely interested in helping other students.
Respect and professionalism.
Tutors are not miracle workers. There is no magic wand to get you an A or make you understand everything, so tutors certainly can’t do that either. They will work with you on study skills and techniques and review information to help you work towards success.
Tutors will help you work towards independent learning.

Come with a plan. Know what you want to work on, it’s even better if you can include that when you schedule the appointment, then they may be able to prepare even more thoroughly.
Come Prepared. You should always bring notes, textbooks, and syllabi to tutoring appointments. Occasionally a tutor will ask you to bring specific materials, assignments, or to come prepared with a list of questions. Take advantage of this. The tutor is asking you do to this because they know how to maximize a session for you. Additionally, it is sometimes impossible for them to help you if you do not bring these things.
Arrive on time. Tutors have a specific period of time during which they will wait. If you exceed that time, they will leave, and your appointment will be marked as a no-show. If you accumulate 3 no-shows (in any tutoring center), you will be locked out of WC Online and be contacted by Academic Resource staff for a meeting.
Be an active participant. You should expect to be engaged in the session. Your tutor will ask questions and have a dialogue with you. Tutoring is productive and effective when it is interactive.
Provide feedback. If you don’t understand something, or something is not working, you should be honest and let them know. They will not judge you, and their feelings won’t be hurt if the way they’re tutoring isn’t working for you. They want to help and need feedback to do that.
Respect. Be respectful of your tutors’ time and efforts. They want to help you and work as a tutor because they love helping students. Be respectful of their time by arriving on time, and staying for the entire scheduled appointment. If you will need to leave early, plan ahead and let your tutor know via email or when booking the appointment.

New tutors are hired each spring to beging the following fall semester. Tutors must have a cumulative GPA of at least a 3.0 and a recommendation from the faculty of the course they wish to tutor. Students of who will have completed at least one full semester is eligible to apply.

To apply, complete the application here. Please note that applications may be submitted at any time, but will only be reviewed during the second half of spring semester.

When you apply, you will need to list each faculty you had for any course you are applying to tutor. The OAS will reach out to them to complete our recommendation form. Course mentors must be nominated by their department and do not need to list faculty recommendations.

The OAS will reach out to qualified applicants for interviews. Tutors are not hired for every subject and tutors who are able to tutor in multiple areas are given higher priority, to ensure you are able to tutor enough hours to earn the CRLA Certification you are eligible for through out training.

Course Mentoring

The Course Mentor Program is a series of review sessions for students taking historically difficult courses. The Course Mentor Program is provided for all students in classes which the program is embedded. Attendance at sessions is voluntary.

At each session, you will be guided through this material by your assigned Course Mentor, a student who has previously taken the course and has been recommended by faculty. Not only does your Course Mentor conduct study sessions, they will be with you in the class along the way!

Course mentors are placed in some of our historically challenging entry level courses:

BIO 111/112
CHE 120/140
CHE 220/240
PSY 111/112
ENV 101
MAT 106/107

This is a chance to get together with other students in your class to compare notes, to discuss important concepts, to develop strategies for studying the subject, and to test yourselves before your professor does.

If you attend course mentor review sessions regularly, statistics have shown that you will earn a better grade. Not only will you have a better understanding of class content, you will develop more effective ways of studying, which will help you in other courses at Washington College!

Course Mentoring Schedule

New tutors and course mentors are hired each spring to beging the following fall semester. They must have a cumulative GPA of at least a 3.0 and course mentors must be nominated by the academic department they would be working with.

The OAS reaches out to those students to apply. Course mentors are also eligible to work as an individual tutor in the course they mentor as well as any other courses they are qualified to tutor.

If you are nominated and the OAS reaches out to apply, after you apply the OAS will reach out to qualified applicants for interviews.

Seminars

The Office of Academic Skills offers a series of specific workshops to accelerate learning: time management, reading, note-taking, test taking, and other organizational skills.