Felix Balderas 
EDINBURG- Finals are approaching The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and UTRGV is equipped with resources on campus to aid students through difficult courses, expanding knowledge, preparing for exams, and developing academic skill sets.
The Writing Center offers zoom, in-person, and asynchronous feedback mostly focusing on the higher-order concerns of writing, commenting with written feedback on organization and development. The Learning Center helps with a range of courses in mathematics, science and engineering, liberal arts, and business. Tutoring is available through walk-ins, online appointments, in-person tutoring, and peer tutoring.
The tutoring Specialist for the Writing Center Magdalena Flores mentioned that the Writing Center can be used by any classification of students including graduate students. She added that they can give any subject that requires writing including lab reports, business papers, business plans, and non-course related writing like applying for an internship or job application, resumes, creative writing, and personal writing.
Flores spoke to KVAQ-TV about the Writing Center in reference to finals and the assistance they can provide to students.
“For any students that are writing, and the writing is considered a final exam, one of the things that we would need is written proof from the professor. Maybe they had a statement on the syllabus, or they emailed the students and told them to come into the writing center, we would need that proof in order to give them feedback for any writing that is considered a final exam,” said Magdalena Flores.
Program Manager at tutoring labs at the Learning Center Armando Garza talked about the preparation the Learning Center has in place for finals.
“We do review sessions or workshops at the end of the year, and we put out what we are going to be covering to the students and to the professors that teach those courses and all of us will have the change in schedule and we’ll post that online and send it to the areas that need to know about the change,” said Garza.
Garza stated that the goal of the Learning Center is in trying to make sure that students become independent learners and can do it on their own.
“I’d like to say to students to come early and come often because it’s not about just waiting until you’re already not doing so well in the class and trying to pass […] The earlier you come in, the more comfortable you’re going to be with the tutors and the environment and the more welcoming it will seem to you,” said Garza.
Flores added that students should take advantage of these resources early in the semester for the best results. Garza said that a student should not wait until they are failing a course to seek tutoring.
Flores mentioned that towards the end of the semester the Writing and Learning Centers receive a high influx of students, so appointments are recommended to be made at least two weeks in advance to solidify the consultation.
For more information visit https://www.utrgv.edu/writingcenter/ or https://www.utrgv.edu/tutoring/ .
