One of the services the Academic Affairs branch of the Mississippi State University Student Association offers to all students is the Peer Tutoring and Academic Mentoring Program.
In its third year, PTAM currently has 190 volunteers, more than three times the size of the program during its first year, and 125 new volunteers joined the program last fall.
Shelby Balius, director of Academic Affairs for SA, said the program has two parts. The tutoring side of the program generally serves freshmen and sophomores with specific questions or needs in their core classes.
The mentoring program usually assists juniors and seniors on class work specific to their major-related courses, Balius said. 
“A student can empathize with another student better than an instructor can,” Balius said.
She said there are plans to further this program across campus.
“We are planning on expanding and growing this program under the new SA President Rhett Hobart,” Balius said.
She also said expanding the program was one of Hobart’s key platforms in his campaign. Balius said the expansion of the program will ideally ensure every student who needs a tutor or mentor can be matched up with someone to help him or her.
Hobart said PTAM has been revamped this past year, and the PTAM website now lists peer mentors in addition to tutors. He said Balius, as well as incoming Attorney General Justin Watts, added the academic mentoring feature to the program.
He said mentoring another student may mean suggesting particular classes or professors, or helping a student decide if he or she can take a certain class based on the number of planned credit hours. The online list of mentors is divided by college and major.
“We see a need for students to have tutors and academic mentors on campus,” Hobart said of the reasoning behind the program.
He said the PTAM website is a great asset and will show students looking for a mentor or tutor exactly whom to get in touch with.
Hobart said there are always changes to the program that may occur in the future.
“We want to continue to expand,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for students to work with others. It can always be tweaked and made better.”
Outgoing SA President Thomas Sellers said this program was set up simply as a way for students to help other students. He said the student mentoring offered by the program is not intended to replace faculty advising, but to supplement it.
Sellers said the tutoring aspect of PTAM means getting specific help with specific questions, whereas mentoring is essentially academic advising. This could include addressing questions about credit hours, class scheduling or whether or not two classes could be taken successfully during the same semester.
Tutors are selected by SA at the beginning of the school year. Students make decisions about which tutors they want to meet from an online list of available tutors. Some tutors might work for free, and others may charge a small fee for each session, Sellers said.