Peer mentors expand cultural and academic experiences
—By Lori Craig
Six hundred J.D. students and 86 LL.M. students study side-by-side at the law school each day, but sometimes that’s where the relationship ends.
The International Relations Organization (IRO) wants to break down the cultural and language barriers with a voluntary peer mentoring program that launches this month.
“There really is a need for some kind of mentoring program or one-on-one dialogue between LL.M. students and J.D. students,” said 3L Josh Lockman, president of IRO. “This, at the very least, will help to create more interaction outside the classroom, which is something that both groups of students can benefit from.”
The J.D./LL.M. Partnership Program pairs J.D. students with those enrolled in USC Law’s Graduate and International Programs (G&IP) based on professional and personal interests. All that’s expected with participation in the program is a coffee meeting once each semester.
“One of the things we are getting out of this is a better way to appreciate the diversity of this law school,” Lockman said.
G&IP students hail from countries such as Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, France and Germany.
“The program offers LL.M. students a great opportunity to integrate and interact with J.D. students and enhance their communication skills in English,” said Bader Balghonaim, G&IP social chair and an LL.M. student from Saudi Arabia. “J.D. students will have an international legal insight on domestic law topics, become familiar with how the law is applied in other countries, and even practice a second language with their mentorship partner.”
J.D. students, through relationships with LL.M. students here at USC Law, can obtain a much broader view of the application of the law in the larger world, said Professor Edwin Smith, who teaches international law and is a faculty advisor to G&IP. Just as students from one school to the next work with different assumptions and ask different questions, LL.M. students often ask questions that Smith “would never have imagined” himself.
“We wind up being much more capable of dealing with the broader possibilities in the world,” Smith said. “We become much richer and much more educated with exposure to different viewpoints.”
Fifty-two students already have been paired up, but more partners are needed. Students interested should e-mail uscjdllm@gmail.com.
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