Meet Providence College’s First Adult Student Tutor
Christian Ferreira is not your typical college student. He’s a first-generation, adult student working a full-time job, and his prior education included plenty of home schooling and online learning long before the pandemic.
Though his differences have presented some challenges, he’s managed to turn them into strengths. Now he’s using those strengths to help other students of all ages and backgrounds, as Providence College’s first adult student tutor.
“My family moved around a lot while I was growing up, so I had opportunities to learn in different ways,” Ferreira says. “I’ve gone to public school and private school. I’ve been homeschooled and attended school online. In some cases when you’re being homeschooled, you’re really learning how to teach yourself, because your parents can help you to a point but there are still gaps. On the other hand, when I was in public school, I had to learn how to adjust my learning style to a group setting.”
“I ended up picking up different strategies for learning in those different environments. Tutoring allows me to pull from all of those experiences to help other people find those tools for themselves so they can learn and grow in the way that works for them, too.”
Ferreira is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in History at Providence College School of Continuing Education (PCSCE). He’s on track to graduate this spring and is looking forward to pursuing a master’s degree in History at PC in the fall, with the goal of becoming a history professor.
He says his time at PCSCE and his new role at PC’s Tutoring Center have offered the perfect bridge from the unique experiences and perspectives of his past to the teaching career he envisions for himself in the future.
“When I complete my bachelor’s degree, I will be the first in my family to do that. My parents came to the U.S. from the Azores when they were younger. Both had some college education, but I will be the first to actually achieve that degree,” Ferreira says.
“It’s exciting in a lot of ways but it’s also a difficult process. Getting a college education can be challenging for many people. The additional challenge for first-gen students, is that you do not have the same resources readily available that students of later generations may have. It takes a lot of searching and learning just to get to step one.These difficulties aren’t impossibilities though, and I am grateful to my parents for having been incredible resources in my education, especially for providing me the option to be homeschooled which certainly took allot of dedication on their part.”
For Ferreira, that learning process began when he enrolled at a state college as a traditional undergraduate day school student and found that the usual mold didn’t fit his unique needs. Finding the right connection between his studies and his life led to his own success in college, and now that discovery is helping him to help other students, too.
“I support myself and need to dedicate 40 hours to work each week, so I ended up having a lot of trouble balancing my work schedule with my school schedule as a traditional day school student. That’s when I knew I needed to find a place that could understand that and was geared for that situation, but was also a good school with a challenging curriculum. And that’s when I transferred to PCSCE,” he says.
“The work that they do there for adult students is amazing. They allow people to meet their dreams right where they are. Just the fact that classes are in the evening took a ton of weight off my shoulders; it made completing my education possible. When you have a college program that is accessible then you add the affordability, and the high quality of a Catholic education, what more can you ask for?”
Apart from the accessibility that PCSCE affords to adult students, Ferreira says the approach to learning he’s experienced there mirrors his own, and was a major factor in him wanting to pay it forward to other PC students as a tutor as well.
“When you’re learning at PCSCE you’re not just learning about the content in the class. You’re also learning how to learn and even further out than that, how to put that learning to work for your life and your goals,” he says.
“When I applied to be a tutor I talked with Jennifer Souza [assistant director for tutorial services at PC] a lot about how I would be able to engage other students as a tutor. And I think a lot of it comes down to finding how to engage with the material in a way that is important to you and your life. You’re not going to enjoy the work if you don’t find where you connect with it.”
“Over the course of my studies here, I’ve written papers and taken courses on everything from the holocaust to the French revolution, to modern African history and in all of that work I’ve tried to find how I can connect personally with the content. There’s always been some aspect that made me want to learn more and drove my research forward.”
“The content that motivates you is out there for you to find, and when you do work that resonates with you, you’re telling a story that may resonate with many other people, too.”
Ferreira’s own story is sure to resonate with many of his fellow students at PCSCE as well as undergraduates who come to him for tutoring as well – and he says he’s really looking forward to it.
“A lot of people worry, if they’ve been out of school for a long time, how they’re going to jump back in. PCSCE does provide great resources to help with that and I’m really excited that the Tutoring Center at PC now has a PCSCE student to help tutor other PCSCE students as part of that as well. I’m so happy to have the opportunity to add to that magic that PCSCE provides and help people learn how to be a student again.”
