My four years: living and learning

Four years!

It’s my fourth year at Baylor, fourth year in the ECS-LLC, the fourth year that the ECS-LLC has been in existence… that any LLC at Baylor has been in existence.

I’ve been so blessed to be a part of this wonderful program and wonderful group of people. What started as a small group of individuals on a few floors of two different buildings in the North Village has grown and bloomed into an organization that fosters student success not only in education, but also in the broader spectrums of life.

This success stems from the people in the LLC; it’s filled with students, staff, and faculty that are genuinely interested in how students are doing as they walk through school and through life.

I’ve seen it firsthand by having those people help me. When I came into college, I had no idea how to study. I’d spent all of high school finishing my homework before I even came home and just needing to only briefly go over material before a test.

College changed all that.

Suddenly that type of preparation for school was not enough. I realized that I was struggling and knew that I needed help. So, I went to my new college family, the ECS-LLC, and found a professor within that family. She sat down with me and helped me draw out a plan for how to study and talked about the best ways to succeed in college. After following the program we came up with, I began to do a lot better in college studies. This professor has been a part of the ECS-LLC since inception and has become a part of it in more ways than just helping out from her office. She has become an even stronger part of the family - now she lives here! Right next door to students! That’s the personal interest that people here have in helping students.

Another way that the ECS-LLC helps people is tutoring. The ECS-LLC started a tutoring program after it realized that students needed a way to help them understand the difficult problems that arise out of our studies. Nearly any day of the week anyone can walk to the Heritage Academic Commons and receive help on any subject from computer science to engineering, even subjects as far away from ECS as proofing an English paper. But, in addition to this formal time of help, there are many that just help out whenever it is needed.

My freshmen year, when I needed help with my physics and calculus, I didn’t have to go over to the math building and find someone like so many others have to do. I just had to yell down the hall or walk next door. The other day, I was walking down the hall to do laundry and on the way back was stopped by someone who needed help on a computer program that they were writing. I gladly offered my assistance to help him understand what was going on and why the program wasn’t working. In two shakes of a lamb's tail, he fixed his program, thanked me, and I went merrily on my way.

A bit later, I thought more about it. For the last two years I had witnessed myself, along with many others, making similar small help-contributions to others within the ECS-LLC. We had started doing the same exact thing that others before us had done - helping the other students in classes we had already taken.

Now, that discovery was something that I think is truly amazing. The people that were in the ECS-LLC at its foundation, the people that were receiving help from others in the beginning had begun to complete the cycle by helping the newer students.

As a group, the members of the ECS-LLC created a self-sustaining cycle of student success. The upper-classification students help the lower-classification students, then the upperclassmen graduate and the lowerclassmen advance, and begin the cycle over again by teaching the incoming students.

That is exactly what living and learning is and should be about: People, working together to create success within themselves and others.

Carl Mehner graduates with a computer science degree this May. He is also engaged and getting married in August.