Graduate Internship: 2 Month Update

The SLP Staff (aka the Clark delegation) at NACA Northeast last weekend!

I am currently on week 11 of my 15 week practicum for the fall semester and time is FLYING. I know that I mentioned that only being here 10 hours a week really makes it seem like time is just slipping away, and it still rings true. I'm usually only at Clark two days a week which also contributes to the illusion of the semester going by unusually fast. (By the time I finally catch up on everything I've missed while I was off campus, it's time for me to leave again!) I'm still really enjoying my time here, though, and am finally starting to feel a bit more acclimated to the Clark culture.

Students

I'm getting significantly more student interaction on a day-to-day basis now, which I've been loving. I've been working 1-on-1 with my blog contributors on a semi-regular basis, and have even gotten the chance to sit in on a few Undergraduate Student Council meetings, which has been a pretty cool experience as I haven't yet worked with a student government organization.

I would definitely stick to my first observation that Clark students are very passionate and aren't afraid challenge ideas and face difficult situations. They aren't afraid to really ask questions of the staff, express their opinions on ideas, and make their voices heard. It's a refreshing change of pace from other campuses that I have been involved with, whose students may be a bit more reserved with it comes to difficult topics.

Moving forward, I'm hoping I will get to continue my interactions with Student Council, and I'm going to get to start interacting with the Orientation staff as well, which we all know that I LOVE! Next semester will definitely be much more hands on when it comes to working with students, which I am really looking forward to.

Projects

The SLP blog is officially off the ground! So far we've had 3 posts on very different topics, and I'm excited to continue working with the contributors to bring out their creativity when it comes to approaching leadership topics. If you'd like to take a peak at what we've been writing about, check it out here. (We actually just posted a really awesome infographic that one of the students I work with made today!)

I'm also still researching how other institutions approach leadership programs and how those programs could be implemented here. I'm meeting with a committee of faculty and staff members at Clark next Friday to discuss this topic (which will be really awesome!) and see what its place is here. I'm very interested to see what type of leadership issues are brought up at this meeting.

As I mentioned above, I'll be working more with the Orientation staff, particularly running leadership development sessions with them as they prepare for the summer. I'm going to meet with the Orientation Coordinators (sort of like the "head" Orientation Leaders) tomorrow and I can't wait to get a feel for their personalities and what it will be like to work with them throughout the rest of the academic year!

Tomorrow night I'll be attending my first Clark event - Jay Pharoah - put on by the Major Events Committee! I haven't yet been able to make a major event work in my schedule, so I am very excited to see what a large event looks like on this campus. I know that I'll be present at a few very large events in the spring that are beloved Clark traditions, but I'm glad I'll get the chance to see an event in action this semester as well!

I can't believe I only really have a month left of my first semester here. I'm very thankful that I'll get to continue my internship through the spring as well - one semester is definitely not enough! I'll be posting next month with my next update, so stay tuned!

Graduate Internship: 1 Month Update

I can't believe it's already been a month since I started my internship with Clark! I suppose that only being there 10 hours a week can make it seem like it's going by quickly, but I'm also really enjoying myself, which definitely helps! Because my internship takes up so little time in my schedule in comparison to my other two positions, I often forget to blog about what's going on there, so I figured it's deserving of it's very own post! :)

Students

Clark's student population is extremely unique to any others that I've worked with before. From simply being on campus, you can tell where their priorities and interests lie. During the time I've spent on campus this past month, I've noticed that these students genuinely enjoy being engaged on campus and want to leave their mark while they're here.

Social justice and acceptance are clearly very important to these students, and they aren't afraid of their own voices. While I was on campus a few weeks ago, a student group put on a program revolving around consent and the education of why it's important. While other student populations may have shied away from this topic, these students embraced it - there was a line to get the opportunity to share their thoughts on the matter! I love the passion of the students here, and I'm excited to see this passion shine through in many different areas.

Projects

I know I haven't gone into too much depth about what I'm doing at Clark so I'll give you a rundown. The office that I'm interning for, Student Leadership and Programming, is hoping to build up it's leadership programming for students, and my main focus right now is to explore how that can be accomplished in the best way for Clark students. Over the academic year, the hope is to begin offering some instances of leadership training for students as well as improve upon the resources we have for leadership education. It's still a little foggy about how it'll eventually look, but I've been doing tons of research of leadership programs from other colleges and universities and brainstorming ideas of how to make it unique to Clark.

One of the biggest projects I've begun so far is creating a blog for the office! I'm hoping to engage students not only through their readership but through recruiting some contributors as well. I think that while it's great that we, as staff members, are hoping to provide training and knowledge for our student leaders, it's also important for current student leaders to be able to share their voice with the rest of campus. Having students lending their experiences to those that are just beginning to hone their leadership skills will also allow growth for their own leadership as well. The blog hasn't launched quite yet, but I'm starting to gain some interest from students who are willing to contribute, so I'm excited to see where it goes!

Everything is still in its early stages, but things are starting to gain a bit of traction and direction. I'm happy that I'll get to be at Clark for an entire academic year and to see the these projects through 'til May. It will be interesting to see where it all goes. I'll be posting another update next month, so stay tuned!

My #SAStory

One of the biggest questions people always ask one another when making small talk in the Student Affairs field (at least among new professionals and grad students) is how they wound up pursuing a career in it. I feel like I've told my story over and over to aspiring and current #SApros, and each time more and more of the story gets chopped off for fear of boring everyone and coming off as self-centered.

I do really enjoy my story, and when I tell it I remember what inspired me to get into the field in the first place. I figured that before I get further in my career and the details of why I got into this field get hazy, I should write it all down with photos and all! This will likely be a longer post, so if you'd like to learn more about how I decided my career path, please click the cut! (And you'll get to see me in all of my college glory... #embarrassing)

And just like that...

...the semester begins. I began my second year of grad school yesterday and all of my commitments are in full-swing. (Yikes!) It's been a crazy couple of weeks prepping for the return of the students, but now that it's here I'm very excited to get this semester underway! 

I've been doing some exploring around the area where Brett works when I go to visit. I usually have a lot of time to wander around when he's busy doing his football coachin' thang and I found a little donut shop not too far from campus called Dippin' Donuts. I'm pretty sure I've been to a Dippin' Donuts at some point in my life, but I'm not entirely sure. Either way, this place is awesome. They have specialty coffees like my favorite South Shore chain MaryLou's and so many yummy goodies. So far I've had the Twix and Oreo iced coffees and I'm in love!

I did my absolute best at soaking up what was left of summer before getting back into the swing of things, and I think I did a pretty awesome job. Having some downtime while visiting Brett allowed me to do one of my favorite summer activities - reading in the grass - and although I didn't make it to too many ice cream stands, the cafeteria at Brett's campus was fully stocked with bubblegum ice cream every time we had our dinner there. If that's not a success, I don't know what is! (And lucky for me - and everyone - ice cream joints will still be open for a few more weeks!)

With the New Hampshire Marathon just a few short weeks away, I've been really focused on getting my long runs done. I've started celebrating #SundayRunday as the time to sweat it out for a consecutive three-and-a-half hours and put some serious mileage under my feet. Because I'm focusing more on my long runs, I'm only doing 1 or 2 additional shorter runs during the week, and generally asking a lot less of myself in the running department while trying to be a bit better about stretching and body weight exercises. This upcoming Sunday is when my final long run is scheduled  (18 miles - the furthest I went before running Hartford) before I begin to taper and incorporate more shorter runs into my weekly routine. I can't believe how close my second marathon is!

I mentioned it in a previous post, but I began my graduate internship last week! I am working with Clark University's Office of Student Leadership and Programming. My main responsibility has to do with developing leadership programming for the campus. We're, of course, at the very early stages of this project, but leadership programming is one of my favorite things that a college campus can offer, and it's been a little while since I've been directly involved in an extensive project involving it, so I'm very interested and excited to see where it will go!

Though this is the second week Clark's been in action, both Dean and BSU opened this week. Of course, move-in at Dean was on a nice and disgustingly humid Labor Day, but I had my awesome staff to keep me company over the 10+ hours we were working check-in. My CAs took the initiative to pretty much do all of the work while Sport & I kicked back and focused on welcoming students & families to campus. My staff is awesome (photo below for proof).

The next day was a slew of Welcome Week activities for the incoming first years at Bridgewater. Our office helped out with coordinating the class picture for about 1,000+ first year students (which unexpectedly included me getting smashed in the head by a metal sign stanchion... Thanks, wind. -_-), Convocation, and an awesome back-to-school barbecue on the lawn of Boyden. It was great to see some of the students I hadn't seen all summer and to see the campus in full swing once again!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I began my classes yesterday evening with Intro to Career Counseling. This is the course that I've heard a lot of people have trouble with, which makes me a bit nervous, but I'm actually pretty interested in the topic itself. I worked in the Career Services office at Lasell and really enjoyed seeing what career counseling for college students was all about. I'm interested to see where this course goes, and how well I'll perform in it!

And, in the spirit of the first day of school, I naturally had to take a picture to send to my parents like I did last year. This year I went for the cutesy sign-holding photo noting what grade I'm starting so my parents could post it to Facebook and brag like the rest of the moms and dads out there (and they both actually did...).

I know this year is going to be crazy. I've had multiple people (students, colleagues, supervisors, friends, family, etc.) approach me to ask how I'm going to accomplish balancing everything, but I know I'm an organized person, I know I thrive when my schedule is packed, and I know I'm going to rock it.

The other night, Brett and I ordered Chinese food for dinner and I got a surprisingly appropriate reminder of how to best approach this year, and I'm going to end this post on that.

I hope you're all having a wonderful start to your September, and I'll talk to you all soon!

xx