There are times when learning reaches beyond the classroom.
For those students who find it difficult to buckle down and seek tutoring, the University offers several outlets for them to get scholastic assistance.
There are also options for students who are not too proud to ask for help.
“It was really easy for me to seek tutoring help,” Rodney McIntyre, 19, said.
McIntyre, a freshman physical therapy student from Leesburg, said professors often teach too quickly, which makes it hard for him to keep up and understand the curriculum.
McIntyre said he finds it helpful that his peers tutor him.
“The tutoring reminds me of high school where the teachers were able to meet with me one-on-one,” McIntyre said. “It helps because a lot of times, the professors teach too fast when I’m in class.”
Kevon Ronnie, a 22-year-old general math and science tutor, said student tutors help provide a better understanding of the curriculum than college professors.
“I take the time and focus on the area the student needs work on the most and concentrate on that,” the senior biochemistry student from Trinidad said.
Ronnie said his teaching tactics are designed to help students relax, pinpoint their weaknesses and improve them.
And for at least one of his tutees, McIntyre, his help has paid off.
“The tutoring helps me to understand my math work,” McIntyre said. “My grades went up a whole lot when I started going to the tutoring lab.”
Some tutors are aiming to open more tutoring facilities for students on campus.
“I want to open an LSAT tutoring program on campus,” said Kenneth Perkins, 21. Perkins, a senior Spanish and religion student from Fayetteville, Ga., volunteers his time to tutor students who seek additional help for classes.
“Last semester, I hosted tutoring sessions in Gibbs Hall and (the Grey Gore Complex),” Perkins said. “I now tutor students often in the library or at Jazzman’s Cafe.”
Some people say it is difficult for students to adjust their schedules in order to get the help that they need.
“I think a lot of students don’t want to take the time,” Allison Lockard said.
Lockard, an employee at FAMU’s Sunshine Manor, which houses the University’s counseling center, said students should not think of tutoring as a negative thing, but as a way to seek help and improve their academic skills.
“(Students) put things off until they realize it’s too late,” she said.
Some professors recommend Perkins to their students who they identify as needing additional help.
“The students are usually receptive, but their teachers tend to talk to me and tell me what the students need,” Perkins said. “Once the students begin tutoring, they eventually are trying to prove their abilities to themselves and no longer to the teacher.”
Although tutors help others, they often learn a few things in the process.
“Tutoring others is preparing me for a summer admissions program for dental school,” Ronnie said. “This has taught me how to understand people.”
For Perkins, it is a little different. He influences students just as other people helped him.
“There has been times when I was able to understand something a little clearer by teaching it to someone else,” he said. “It has helped me to use my skills to help others and raise up other people.”