Sunday, July 27, 2014

Joshua Thompson: Office of Instituional Diversity and Inclusion - Week 6

Experience:

It feels kind of surreal looking back over the course of this summer and how fast that everything has gone. I did not expect to be able to come into my practicum and feel as professionally mature as I do as I am typing this post. I shared with you all that I was able to find my identity as a professional, which is something that I was really struggling with.

I feel as though I had a unique experience in working with my practicum site in that it is not typically one that is affiliated directly with Student Affairs. From coming here I feel as though I am more sure that Student Affairs is the position that I would like to be in for my desired profession. I gained tons of experience with the programming and coordination of events for minority student success, a student type that has been appealing to me sense I made that decision to become a student affairs professional. Also, I received a lot of "mentoring" from my direct supervisor, Gregory Hunley. He really broke things down for me in matters of professional practice. He established sort of an unspoken “open door" policy when it came to any questions or concerns that I had within the office. This relationship was very beneficial to me for my growth. He was also really good at providing feedback on some of my ideas, and telling me exactly why or why not it would be feasible for the office. I feel as though I worked really well with this type of direction, and in turn I learned more and gained valuable perspective. I would definitely consider him to be sort of an “mentor like figure” for me in terms of professional development.

Ending things I let him know that I would be open to possibly volunteering when possible to further see to it that programming efforts ran as efficiently as possible. I am very grateful for this experience as it ultimately helped me to come a few steps closer to where I would like to be professionally.

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