Carolina Experience Peer Leaders are third- and fourth-year undergraduate students at USC Columbia who work to assist students beyond the first year in their transition through the university. They assist with the SophoMORE Year Success Experience, the Junior Year Success Experience, Transfer Student Success, Senior Year Success, and faculty-student interaction programs such as Mutual Expectations. Specifically, they meet one-on-one with students in the associated population via Success Consultations, serve as a mentor, help with a variety of programming efforts and other duties as assigned.

Eligibility  

To be considered, students must:

• Be an undergraduate student at the University of South Carolina-Columbia.
• Have and maintain an overall GPA of 3.0 or above (on a 4.0 scale) while employed.
• Be in their third year or beyond at USC at time of employment. If a transfer student, they must have one year at the Columbia campus completed at the time of employment.
• Have effective interpersonal and communication skills.
• Have strong organizational and time management skills.
• Have a desire to help their fellow students.
• Have experience with event planning or mentoring. Preferred, but not required.
• Must commit for the entire academic year, early August to the end of the spring semester in early May.
• Must be willing to return to campus in early August for training prior to the start of the semester.  

Job Responsibilities

• Serve as a mentor and role model to fellow students.
• Help guide and support sophomores, juniors, seniors, and transfer students while at USC.
• Hold one-on-one consultations with students in regard to the sophomore year, junior year, senior and transfer year.
• Help plan and implement all programming and outreach for sophomore year, junior year, senior year and transfer students. (Programs include, but are not limited to: SophoMORE September, Transfer Welcome Series, National Transfer Week, SophoMORE Halfway There, Adulting 101 Series, and others. )
• Aid in survey and focus group analysis of targeted populations.
• Help in the development of the Carolina Experience office by providing feedback and sharing ideas when requested.
• Other duties as assigned.

Breakdown of Weekly Hours

• 1 hour-long staff meeting (scheduled prior to the start of the semester).
• 9-12 consultation and project hours (scheduled at the start of the semester).
• Bonus hours opportunity for working events or workshops outside of scheduled hours.

Application Process 

The application process for CEPL for the 2025-2026 academic year will open in the spring 2025 semester.