The Mentors@De Anza program came to life thanks to Karina Thiagarajan’s passion for peer mentorship. 

The mentorship program connects first-year students to more experienced students to help with everything from choosing classes to transferring.

Thiagarajan, 28, an economics and psychology major and chair of the ICC, said she wanted a program to help new students with important steps to take while students are in community college. 

“There’s a lot of people at De Anza that don’t know such information,” said Thiagarajan. “This program has actually been incredible, we have about 100 mentees and about 50 mentors.”

Through peer mentorship, events, and podcasts, this program provides guidance to De Anza College’s students.

Senior mentor Mehul Sharma, 19, psychology and networks major, said everything is mostly done virtually.

“Students are asking for guidance on Discord and Reddit posts as well as Weeks of Welcome events, students want to sign up and they need mentors to help them, many sign up after events,” Sharma said.

This program interacts with the community by trying to build connections with people who have transferred from De Anza and pairing them with current students. 

The program is also hosting a logo drawing competition. The winner of the contest will win a $100 Visa gift card, and the opportunity to have their logo represent Mentors@De Anza. 

The competition ends on Oct. 31,  and a winner will be announced Nov. 8. 

“We want to connect with the community and provide a creative and fun competition for people to have their artwork be displayed,” said Thiagarajan. 

Some of the program’s upcoming events include a Stanford transfer panel, help with University of California and USC applications and Common Application help.