The Washington Mentorship Program gives AU students admitted for the spring semester an opportunity to live in D.C., take some college classes and have an internship. The students live at the Tenley Campus. AU offers the program because it does not have a wait list.
The program began four years ago. Mentorship students take 15 credits - "College Writing," "Politics in the U.S.," "Cross-Cultural Communication" and a Mentored Field Practicum course. Although the courses are aimed at helping students fulfill the College Writing requirement and General Education requirements, some students who have completed the program complain that they are behind in coursework for their major once they come up to main campus.
This year, the 101 students in the Mentorship program are facing the same housing crunch that forced hundreds of freshman triples on main campus.
Despite being isolated from the campus community and being forced into triples, the Mentorship program offers students some great benefits. Very few university students can take an internship for credit the first semester of their freshman year. Many majors at AU don't allow students to take internships for credit until students have achieved upperclass status. Also, because the Mentorship students intern two full days a week, some undoubtedly are assigned meaningful work. (Obviously some of them are still stuck photocopying and making coffee, but some of us are, too.)
The program also provides freshmen with a built-in, tightly-knit group of friends when they arrive at school. Students who have completed the program generally stay friends once they make the move up to main campus spring semester.
Tenley campus is closer to the Metro and Chipotle, and students consistently say that Tenley Caf? is better than TDR.
Ultimately, students who were given admission to AU in the spring semester don't have to participate in the program. But who would rather spend a semester at home working a low-paying, no-respect leftover high school job instead of spending a semester right up the street from Chipotle?
