This year De Soto High School has started a new program called freshman Mentors to help acclimate the  freshmen class to their new high school environment.

In this new program upperclassmen in the Ambassadors and Mentors Crew have an assigned freshmen Seminar, that they go into and teach about different aspects of high school and bond with kids in their class.

Many freshmen like Nate Barnhart have benefited from this new program.

“I feel like it made the first day a lot more comfortable for us, and it was cool to get to know some of the upperclassmen,” Barnhart said.

This isn’t just beneficial to the freshmen though. Senior John Kraus feels he got just as much out of the first few day.

“The mentor program not only helped me to talk in front of crowds more comfortably, but it also helped me get a lot of community service hours,” Kraus said.

Some of the topics that have been covered so far have been how to use Seminar wisely, time management skills, the importance of attendance, tours around the school and how to become successful and involved at De Soto High School.

With all of these new lessons the new students at DHS have had a pretty easy transition, taking into consideration that high school will never be a small transition.

Junior Lauryn Williams, among many other mentors, is very excited for more meetings with her group.

“I feel like the more we meet with them, the better connections we can build, and the better off De Soto will be as a community,” Williams said. “I am very excited and proud to be a part of the mentoring group.”