Laura Dunn, Blog 6: College Ready

Activities:

·      Acting as a path finder to speak with students who are skipping class

·      Advising students on the advantage of dropping a class when necessary

·      Helping retrieve a lost cell phone from an elevator shaft

·      “Are you smarter than a faculty member” trivia night

·      Lab Rats performance- Pop corn expert

·      Oak Hall office hours

This past week has been yet another one filled with adventure!  As you can see from my activities above, my practicum is filled with a wide range of duties and it has afforded me some great diverse experiences.  The most important topic of this week was academics though.  I’ve been serving as the program path finder, so when a students skips more than two classes I am notified by the professor and I follow up with the students.  This week was increasingly important because of how far into the July semester it was.  Friday was the last day to drop classes, so for the students that were pretty much at the verge of no return, this was a great piece of advice!  Some students took my advice, while others did not.  Either way, it gave me valuable experience in speaking with students one-on-one in regards to their academic careers.  It reminds me that ultimately the decision is up to the students and I have to be ok with it, even if they choose to crash and burn.  There were a couple fireballs this week, but they did so on their own accord. 

           

However, this week was also full of some wonderfully memorable moments!  On the first day of this week I was speaking with a group of students playing twister (a group plays it every day…) and out of the corner of my eye I see a student accidentally drop his phone down the elevator shaft.  This lead to an interesting discussion of what the best course of action for such an event is. 

This week we also had two scheduled events that did not disappoint.  Tuesday night was our annual “Are You Smarter than a Faculty Member” trivia night.  Students had a great time playing and lucky, a student group won, beating out the faculty group by one point!  

We also were lucky enough to have a lab rats performance on Wednesday evening as well.  So many of the students had no clue what Lab Rats were but we encouraged them to go and promised a good show.  Very happy they did not disappoint and lived up to the hype! I also learned some valuable skills of how to use a popcorn machine.  I only have minor burns to report...

With any event that we have set up for the students, no one is required to go, only encouraged.  We want the students to have things to do since the summer session is very chill, but we also want them to have free will and be able to make their own choices.  The graduate assistant for College Ready and I make rounds reminding people about upcoming events and really talking them up.  Typically the students that join in the events are the ones doing well across the board and that keep in contact with us.  Some of these students I have become very close with and they come down to keep me company on lonely nights during my desk office hours.  The other night I didn’t bring dinner and the vending machine wasn’t working so a group of student brought me food from their room.  Love these guys!  

This week’s reading focused on enjoying the journey of our student affairs career, and what a journey this practicum has been.  There have been many ups and downs, and an extremely diverse amount of experiences, just like most professions in students affairs.  I’ve been very lucky to be able to bring to the table a lot of my past experiences, that although some may seem disconnected, in the working world they all blend together to make a great mix if skills that are easily utilized in the student affairs world. 

The tips offered by our readings were also quite refreshing and spoken truly!  I’ve been working full time for almost 4 years and each piece of advice offered by the book I absolutely agree with!  From committing to hard work, to not being afraid each statement offered a wonderful frame for the kind of world we all plan to work in.  The statement that stood out most to me would be having broad shoulders and small tear ducts.  I can honestly say in the past 4 years this has come in handy so many times, especially since I work between the world of student affairs and academics.  We take a lot of abuse in our positions but the good definitely outweigh the bad and it’s all worth it!