The Multicultural Student Center is home to many programs for Georgia Southern students to take advantage of during their first year of college, but they are also home to a possibly unfamiliar program: MAP.

The Minority Advisement Program (MAP) aids freshman and transfer students into college transitioning and helps those students understand basic college essentials, as well as becoming established academically and socially stable.

Sophomore business major and MAP Sponsor, Jordan Walker, explains how the mentor department helps students during the transitioning process of college life.

“We help them by making them feel included. We help them by opening their eyes to the many different resources and communities on campus so they don’t feel alone,” Walker said. “We help them by providing a family away from home because as MAP sponsors, we form a family amongst each other.”

Freshman and transfer students are paired up with a MAP sponsor, who are upperclassmen that are matched up based on similar backgrounds, including majors and interest. MAP sponsors will be able to give some advice to freshman and transfer students and help them avoid issues during the beginning stages of college.

The college transition process for many students has been said to be one of the most stressful times during the average student’s life.

According to a 2008 research study conducted by the U.S Census and American College Testing an published the Huffington Post, of the 18 million students enrolled in college, 34 percent dropped out within the first year due to being unprepared, too much confidence and unrealistic expectation.

Majority of those students dropped out during the first six weeks of school because of their inability to transition into college.

Hope Walker, freshman writing and linguistics major, is interested to see how MAP will help her.

“I think I would try it, maybe. The hardest part right now is being so far away from home. I’m from Cummings, Georgia, which is four hours from here. So it will definitely help,” Walker said.

Takeshia Brown, assistant director of mentor and retention at the MSC, explains what else MSC can do for students.

“MSC is a place where people can come and learn about themselves and figure out how they are going to make an impact and Georgia Southern and beyond Georgia Southern,” Brown said, “It’s a place where students can feel connected. It’s a place where students can feel challenged. I hope for some students, if they don’t feel connected anywhere else, they can come here and we can give them different resources to help them out.”

For more information on the Multicultural Student Center and the other programs and mentoring sessions under it, like Diversity Peer Educators and the Student African-American Brotherhood, head over to students.georgiasouthern.edu/multicultural or go to the MSC office, located in the Russell Union, room 2070.