The CSUN Mentorship Program is a peer mentoring program that promotes student success at Cal State Northridge. We aim to help students more easily navigate university life by exploring various campus resources and engagement/involvement opportunities. Our Mentors are committed to sharing their own experiences, motivating their fellow CSUN students, and helping them set goals to ultimately be successful.
How do we define success?
- Support in academic and personal goals
- Make connections on campus and learn about available resources
- Experience campus events
How Becoming a Mentor Can Benefit You
What is this program about?
College can be an overwhelming experience. Perhaps the campus feels too large to navigate or you don’t quite know which resources to go to for help. Choosing a major or campus organization to be involved in may seem difficult. Figuring out how to be successful during college could seem like a hopeless task.
To help students more easily navigate university life, the CSUN Mentorship Program aims to assist students' adjustment to the college environment through campus engagement and peer mentorship. These connections aim to empower students to fully experience all that CSUN has to offer, allowing them to chart their own path to success from one year to the next.
Interested? Sign up today! Fill out the Mentor Pairing Application to begin your journey to success.
Would this program be a good fit for me?
The CSUN Mentorship Program is available to students who would like guidance on university resources and engagement opportunities to help aid in their overall success. Our Mentors help participating students navigate campus resources, assist with academic and personal success goals, and encourage students to connect with peers through university-sponsored events and involvement opportunities.
Begin Your Journey to Success - Sign Up Now!
Fill out the Mentor Pairing Application to take a step closer to accomplishing your goals!
We admit new participating students at the beginning of each academic year until we reach the program capacity. You will receive an email within a few weeks of applying with updates on the status of your application. Should you not receive an email, please feel free to contact us.
For any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at mentorship.program@csun.edu or call us at 818-677-5383.
“[My mentor] has encouraged me through all of my academics and events that I’ve been a part of. I love her!!!”
“This program has helped me not drop out of CSUN. The same week I signed up I was planning on dropping out since I felt so done and the classes were just way too hard for me. By attending this program, it made me realize I can pass and my mentor was the main one to help me out through this journey. I honestly couldn’t be any more thankful to have her.”
“I love the CSUN Mentorship Program because it kept me on track of my grades and school events, all at once!”
“The CSUN Mentorship Program has played a crucial role in helping me achieve academic goals by introducing me to a mentor that would answer any questions I had. Since I had a mentor that informed me about student resources that I did not know about I was able to achieve my academic goals. This program is a great opportunity to build connections and become more connected with the university. I would recommend this program to my friends and especially incoming freshman.”
“This program has been beneficial for me in making new friends and raising my grades.”
“I did not expect to get as much out of the program as I have. I have had a great time being apart of the program... My mentor has done a great job being supportive of me and always makes time to talk, answer questions, and study. He also helped me become better at talking to new people and has made me want to be more involved and attend more campus events. He’s been a great mentor and friend and I appreciate everything he and the program have done for me”
“Having a plan, a support system, and advisement from my mentor was what helped me achieve all my goals.”
Program Points of Pride
Our program was created in 2016 to increase the retention and persistence of first-time freshmen students from their second to third semester. Since the genesis of our program, we are proud to say we have continuously improved the persistence of students involved in our program - particularly students who are traditionally underserved and are first-generation. Our program retention rates are consistently higher than the overall campus retention rates; see our recent data results below!
| Academic Year | Program Overall Retention | Campus Overall Retention | Traditionally Underserved (Program) | Traditionally Underserved (Campus) | First-Generation (Program) | First-Generation (Campus) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-2017 | 98% | 94.6% | 72.78% | 69.8% | 67.72% | 64.1% |
| 2017-2018 | 84.81% | 80.98% | 68.37% | 70.4% | 72.96% | 70.9% |
| 2018-2019 | 90.21% | 81.23% | 77.55% | 72.1% | 82.14% | 71.9% |
| 2019-2020 | 93.05% | 82.99% | 93.59% | 82.18% | 92.90% | 81.69% |
*Data collected/provided in collaboration with CSUN Institutional Research
Why this matters
Students involved with the CSUN Mentorship Program have higher rates of persistence after involvement with our program during their first year on campus. Our students complete their first year and feel confident enough to continue their academic career with the university, demonstrated by enrollment rates in our students' third semester. We attribute our program's success to the hands-on experience provided by our mentors - individual meetings providing resource referrals to meet each student's particular needs, support in finding involvement opportunities, goal-setting and action plans which include how to seek services past engagement with our program, specialized events for members of our program, and the sense of community provided by our mentors and participating students.
We are doing longitudinal analysis of our student cohorts to document the effectiveness of our program in correlation with program participant graduation rates; this information is still pending our first cohort's graduation results.
Student Development & Transitional Programs
CSUN Mentorship Program Office
USU Southwest
18111 Nordhoff St.
Northridge, CA 91330-8261
mentorship.program@csun.edu
- Phone: (818) 677-2393
Office Hours
Monday-Friday: 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: Closed