When Sara Petersen was a freshman, she found herself looking for free tutoring services to support her studies. Little did she know, walking into The Learning Center would become one of the most impactful decisions of her UNI journey.

Petersen's positive experience led her to become a peer educator, where she discovered a passion for helping others succeed. Her dedication and excellence in this role recently earned her the prestigious Rick Sheets Outstanding Tutor Award, a national honor selected from candidates across more than 1,200 programs.

“Winning the Rick Sheets Outstanding Tutor Award has definitely been a highlight for me,” said Petersen, who is from Des Moines. 

For Petersen, at the core of her love for tutoring is her love for learning.

“I've had people throughout my life tell me that I should look into education or I would be a good teacher or tutor,” she explained. “So I took their advice when I knew The Learning Center had offerings, and I immediately fell in love with it, so I stayed.”

As a double major in communication sciences and disorders and Spanish, Petersen tutors for both subjects as well as writing. She is also a peer mentor for first-year only classes, giving her the opportunity to engage with first-year students and connect them with resources on campus. She loves getting to witness students’ “aha” moments and forming connections with students she may not otherwise meet. One of the best experiences she has had was working with an international student this past year.

“I had been working with them one or two times a week, where they would come in and talk about coursework, but then we would also talk about getting connected on campus,” she said. “By the end of our time together, he had signed up for a student organization. This was a really, really big deal because he was connected to the community.”

In order to receive her tutoring certification for The Learning Center, Petersen had to go through classes and complete a set number of hours tutoring her peers. She knew from the beginning it was a perfect fit, and this award is a testament to that.

“Sara embodies an educator mindset, helping students build a solid foundation to be successful at UNI, in the community and in the world,” said John Ophus, interim executive director of the Office of Undergraduate Studies, who leads The Learning Center and nominated Petersen for the award. “Supporting students is an authentic expression of who she is, which is why it is all the more meaningful for her to receive this honor recognizing her skill, compassion and dedication to student learning and growth.”

Being a tutor has given Petersen much more than  another item on her resume. It’s given her more patience and empathy and shown her how to work with others in new ways.

Petersen hopes to someday take her love of learning and become a professor. She believes the skills she has acquired at The Learning Center are setting her up for career success.

“When I’m in the classroom as a instructor, I'm hoping to take a lot of the lessons that I learned from tutoring into that, like how to design curriculum to meet the needs of all students, how to work with students who don't necessarily understand concepts, and how to be as holistic and equitable as possible,” she said. “Then as a clinician, I think a lot of those things like patience and empathy and understanding will really come into play.”

Petersen wants more students across campus to see the value of services like The Learning Center and utilize it to excel in their college courses.

“Sometimes asking for help can be stigmatized because it's scary or overwhelming,” said Petersen. “A lot of people want to seem independent. I will say it might be scary going in the first time, but after that, it gets a lot easier. It never hurts to ask for help. And if you really don't like the feedback or advice you get, you don't have to take it. So there’s no harm in going. I still use it all the time!”