Scholar - Practitioner Journal 2

Halfway through my first semester of graduate school and I am amazed at all I have learned academically, professionally, and personally. I continue to make connections within all of my courses, as well as my graduate assistantship (GA), and I am thoroughly enjoying the learning process. Throughout the first half of the semester, I have learned more about my own interests, which then prompt questions as to how I incorporate what I have learned into my own practice as a future student affairs educator/career counselor.

As it relates to insights, I have gained about myself, one is the joy I get out of helping organize an event that benefits hundreds of students on-campus. Within my GA role, I assist in the preparation process for various events, a recent event - the COSE Job and Internship Fair, allowed me to realize an area of personal passion. It was rewarding to see the event come together, as I had been helping with aspects of it for the past month and half. I am proud of the hard work my colleagues and I put into the event, that allowed it to be a success. While the planning process was stressful at times, it was a positive and eye-opening experience at another aspect of the career center profession that I am eager to join.

A second insight I gained about myself relates to my professional values. Through experiential opportunities in my GA and discussions had in my courses, I found an important value that relates to my professional philosophy is that of inclusivity. While helping at the Career Center table during the Gear Up for Spring 2020 event, I found great joy out of helping students at the event. It was encouraging to see students that were hesitant/nervous at first meeting and then after our discussion, seemed to feel more comfortable and ready to take on the rest of the event. It was rewarding for me to help make others feel comfortable in a new environment and I realize the value of inclusivity is one in which I will continue to incorporate in every aspect of my role as a GA and in the future as a career counselor. This realization of my professional values leads to a vital question, how can I know I am providing an inclusive environment, when every person is unique and requires different needs to feel included?

Another experience that allowed me to solidify the importance of inclusivity was participating in Safe Space Training. I learned about the opportunity through my GA and I am glad the office I work in promotes and encourages professional development/trainings. The Safe Space Training was informational, and I felt like the training leaders did a wonderful job of encouraging open, yet respectful discussion. It was interesting to learn about not only relevant terminology related to gender and sexuality, but also how to recognize one’s own privilege and learning how to use your privilege to be an ally for others. Another wonderful aspect of the training was being informed on how to utilize the information we learned during the session. For example, a simple, yet powerful thing to put into practice is including your preferred pronouns in your email signature. I learned this allows others to know you are aware of varying preferred pronouns and that it may also cause those unfamiliar with the concept to learn more about what it means. Overall, I am grateful for the opportunity to become more informed on how I can provide a welcoming and safe space for everyone on-campus. The experience was another source that helped solidify the value of inclusion as a key component of my professional values as a future student affairs educator/career counselor.

As it relates to concepts/skills I have gained during the first half of the semester, I found I am beginning to utilize the helping and active listening skills discussed in my Counseling Procedures and Professional Orientation and Ethics courses. In particular, during the Gear Up for Spring 2020 event, I noticed I utilized a few different skills. One skill being active listening, as I had to ask a question and then give them the space to reflect, tell me how they felt and then be able to make them feel heard by reflecting back the insights they mentioned to me. Another skill I utilized was asking open-ended questions, which prompted students to think about their own personality and interests and in turn allowed me to understand the best way to guide them through the process of figuring out which schools/colleges would be of interest to them. Through the event, I not only practiced relevant skills, but I also gained personal insight. The event allowed me to reaffirm my passion for learning about career and personality assessments/inventories. I understand the basics of Holland Codes, the inventory used at the event, but after speaking with a full-time staff member of the Career Center, she provided me with more information and resources available to learn more about Holland Codes and other inventories/assessments (Focus, StrengthsFinder, etc.) relevant to working in a Career Center. Overall, being able to help at the event was a wonderful experience and allowed me to grow and develop my own professional skills as a future student affairs educator/career counselor.

As a whole, all of the insights I have gained about myself through the previously mentioned experiences has prompted me to think about how I can best utilize and incorporate them into my own professional identity. After learning about assessments and their value within the field of Student Affairs in class, I began to wonder how to best utilize them. As I previously questioned, how can I know I’m providing an inclusive environment to all students? I don’t know if it’s appropriate to ask students to assess my skills, as in the future, when I meet with students the time is for and about them, not me. Given that I aspire to be a career counselor, maybe the department will have year-end assessments they send out, to allow me to see how students view the department as a whole. However, even though departmental feedback would be valuable, the question remains, how can I assess myself? One way in which I could self-assess, is through the types of discussions had with students, such as, are the students open and do they seem comfortable to share information about their personal aspirations with me. However, I don’t think that would be able to translate to every student, as some may naturally take more time to open up. While I may not have the answer now, I look forward to continuing my educational and experiential journey towards finding the best way to incorporate inclusivity in my practice, as well as uncovering how I can assess my own skills and the environment I create for students.