Clark- Week 4- USC Student Engagement

Wow. Where do I start? Welcome to South Carolina!

First, last Sunday night I arrive in Columbia, South Carolina. I think as all of you know I did not know the family that I am living with before I moved in with them last week. I am happy to report they are an amazing, fun and very, very gracious family! They have opened their home, friends, and anything that you can imagine up to me, and now introduce me as their daughter, ha! That experience alone has been such a blessing! (I will be sure to post pics of them too next week!)

On to my work site, the Office of Student Engagement.
I LOVE IT.

I arrived on Monday morning to Patterson Residence Hall where our office resides in the basement (which is called the Garden Level). Below is the outside of Patterson.

I met my supervisor Kimberly and she immediately began walking me around and introducing me to everyone.

Our first stop was the intern office. One of the pictures above is a picture of my desk! There are three other interns that work in the office as well. The other interns that sit on each side of me are both in Student Affairs programs (one at USC in their Higher Education program, HESA, and the other at Baldwin-Wallace College), so it is a lot of fun getting to talk to them about what their programs are like, future plans, as well as just talking about the differences in our programs (both of theirs are administrative based). The fourth intern is an undergraduate student intern who does graphic design for the office. They have been such a joy and very very helpful, I don't know what I would have done without them!

When I arrived the office had been under construction for the three weeks prior to my arrival, so everyone was moving all of their belongings back in the office and putting their office lives back in place. I assured them this was nothing new to me after the move our office made over Christmas break!

We went around on a small campus tour to get my Carolina card and parking decal. What a fun day my first day was!

Throughout the week I worked on a number of different projects. The Office of Student Engagement (OSE) focuses on three main areas work (among many thing); Service Learning (Yay!), the National Student Exchange (Domestic Study Away) and Research and Assessment regarding Student Engagement. The first project I worked on was a day trip for the National Student Exchange (NSE) Students. USC will have 13 students this fall that will be attending from the NSE. It is a really cool program that MSU is actually a part of! Second, as I listed before, we do a lot of assessment. There is an organization that falls under the OSE, Peer Leaders, these are students from different areas of Student Life (Orientation Leaders, Diversity Peer Counselors, Recruitment Counselors, etc.) who are members of a larger group called peer leaders that assist with University 101 (U101) classes. U101 classes are first-year experiences courses that are taught at USC and are used to help acclimate students to campus as well as help them to become engaged. These Peer Leaders were asked to take a survey at the end of the year to gage their satisfaction with the program as well as to see growth that too place. I was able to look at the qualitative data and code it for some of these questions! It was fascinating looking at the growth that these students experienced in this role. I would love to see a program like this at MSU!
It has been really neat to learn more about Service-Learning! The OSE works with academic affairs to provide more than 100 Service-Learning courses for undergraduate students. (I've been thinking about you a lot during this Dr. H!) The Associate Director of OSE, Dottie, who works with Service-Learning has been telling me a lot about it and I am meeting with her Monday one-on-one to talk more and can't wait!
I also have been going to meetings, lunches with different members of the staff, as well as calling and asking for gift card donations for their Sophomore September Program.
While calling for these donations for the gift cards, I first hand felt what Thomas was talking about when you say for the first time, "Hello, this is Avent Clark calling from the Office of Student Engagement at the University of South Carolina!" AH! What a strange/exciting feeling!

I can not even begin to describe what just this first week has meant to me. I really do love it at USC and felt like I already have a new university family here. I have learned that it IS ok to do something out of my comfort zone. I have also learned that in a new place sometimes I have to jump right in. Although I did not know exactly what to do when I first started projects this week, I just began them then asked questions along the way. I have also experienced a lot of mentoring already from staff in the OSE. I was telling a member of the cohort yesterday that I feel like my supervisor Kimberly, and the Director of Student Engagement, Jimmie, have spend more time mentoring, taking me to meetings, and intentionally working with me than some people where I work at MSU do! I have been overwhelmed my the amount of knowledge I have already learned from these individuals. This experience has also renewed my joy and energy in Student Affairs in general.
Have I already been looking at jobs at USC for next year? May be. :)

Until next week friends! Love from South Carolina!!!!
GO GAMECOCKS! I mean....

GO DAWGS!!!!! (and yes I wore maroon on Friday!!)