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On any given day, the Center for Academic Resources (CAR) at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh is buzzing with nearly 220 student workers.

The CAR contains nearly the largest number of student workers on campus (second to Residence Life, which employs about 275 students) and offers everything from  tutoring to one-on-one instruction, Peer Educator Review Sessions (PERS) and Supplemental Instruction (SI). Services provided by the CAR are free and available to all undergraduate students at UW Oshkosh.

“The Center for Academic Resources has helped me gain crucial skills and has been super gratifying,” said Anna Yarish, a senior student and worker at the CAR. “I love my job. It is a great opportunity to help others, while doing what I love, which is history.”

At her job in the CAR, which is located inside the Student Success Center, Yarish balances being a history tutor, peer educator and also a desk assistant. She is provided with material that helps her keeps all the important history concepts fresh in her mind so she can successfully tutor other students. She also gets to reinforce her relationships with professors through her role with the CAR.

“I am very fortunate to have these jobs be a part of my college career because I have established great relationships with students and it feels good helping others. I have also made connections working with professors that I might not otherwise of had,” Yarish said.

Yarish credits the benefits of her high-impact opportunity with the CAR to Jessica Spanbauer, the Center’s director.

Spanbauer and the other CAR staff members are busy day in and day out making sure everything in the campus hub for tutoring runs smoothly and think it is worth all the time spent planning to be able to have students work with a peer who has done well.

“For students who become a tutor, they have the opportunity to assist their peers, share knowledge and develop skills keeping that knowledge base fresh to be fluent with all the classes in their major,”  Spanbauer said.

But not just anyone can work at the CAR. There are certain qualifications Spanbauer and the staff make sure the tutors, peer educators and SI leaders have in order to assure the students who utilize CAR’s services are receiving the best.

The qualifications for student-workers include: having a professor recommend the student, having a minimum 3.0 cumulative grade point average and having a B+ or higher in the class that they wish to tutor or teach.

Once selected, the tutors have to go through training , peer educators have to meet with the professor every week and the SI leaders have to meet bi-weekly with a group and also re-attend the class that they are teaching.

Biology and chemistry major Brandon Brummeyer thought all the training to become a supplemental instructor for numerous biology and chemistry classes was worth it and valuable to him.

“I feel satisfaction in helping others. One of the students I tutor for organic chemistry was excited because they had the highest score on the test. It makes me feel proud. I like to teach them how chemistry and biology are exciting too and how it applies to every day situations. I try to make it seem fun, not just another class with busy work,” Brummeyer said.

One of the students that Brummeyer helps via supplemental instruction is sophomore nursing major Kim Glodowski. Glodowski said she enjoys being able to ask the questions that some students may be too intimidated to ask in class. She said it’s also beneficial to go over the class material a second time.

“I definitely would recommend this service to anyone. It’s laid back and fun and you’re still learning material you need to be covering. With the three tutors I have had, I’ve never had a bad one, so that’s something I really like about the program,” Glodowski said.

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