University of North Georgia (UNG) student Kyle Jones is a math peer mentor who has been referred to by his professors as someone who shows patience, compassion, and support when talking with his classmates. Though he has a daunting class load, he also continues to do extra reading into more advanced levels and constantly talks with his professors about how he can learn more.
Jones, who is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in mathematics with an expected graduation date of May 2024, was recently nominated for UNG's Clark-Theodore Outstanding Nontraditional Student Award, which celebrates students' hard work, dedication, and academic excellence. He was enthused and curious as to whether he would win the distinction.
"It’s kind of cool," Jones said, "I just try to make the environment I'm in better. Since I am in this world, I should want to help make it better. Applying that to support my classmates is the same thing, but instead of the whole world it's my community and surroundings. "
He does just that, supporting his peers, as a math peer mentor. Jones came into the role because of his thirst for knowledge which he first experienced when taking his online calculus class in summer 2021.
"We had these discussion posts. Eventually, I got bored and wrote a lot to explain solutions to problems. It turned out that I wasn't half bad at explaining math to other people," Jones said.
His biggest piece of advice is that it's ok to be a little naïve as college is all about asking questions. He encourages his peers to use the resources available to them, especially professors' office hours, as he says it opens the doors to a number of opportunities.
Kyle is also vice-president of the Math Club and views his role in leadership as the act of bringing something new into the world. Jones is expected to graduate in 2024 and hopes to work at an engineering company’s research and development department doing what he loves —math.
