Room for Improvement!

Through all of my different experiences these are the things I believe I need to improve for the next opportunity.

Timeliness:

I ALWAYS underestimate the amount of time it will take me to do something.  I NEVER understand where my time goes.  It literally grows legs and uses its own mind to do what it wants, when it wants whenever it is with me and I just don’t get it.  Even when I think I am planning my time effectively and actually sticking to it, I always seem to take longer than I think I would.  This has always been the case and while I get things done, they are never in the time that I plan and I just don’t know why.

Charge to self: Figure out why time hates me.

Asking for Help Earlier:

This issue kind of plays into the following one.  I think I am very critical of myself in the amount of knowledge I think I am supposed to have.  If I think I am supposed to know all of the state capitals in order to put a play together about the U.S. and knowing the capitals is a critical piece then I would be more hesitant to ask for help.  If I find that I cannot figure out the state capitals on my own and it’s affecting my ability to move forward with the play then I would ask for help, but with caution and a little shame.  I would not be thinking that perhaps the person who gave me the project also does not know the state capitals, or that perhaps they do not expect me to know them or forgot to give me more direction in the area knowing that I would not know them all.  I always place the blame on me.  I really need to stop doing that because one, its unhealthy to myself and two, it stifles movement on the project.

Charge to self: Be kinder to myself and understand that I am not meant to know everything, realizing that no one does and that it is okay to ask for more direction.  Be more honest with yourself about what you do know and what knowledge could use improvement then actively seek to improve it.

Speaking Up, even when I do not think I am as knowledgeable: 

I cannot count how many times I have thought things in a meeting or in a situation where I would not speak up because I thought those around me had more information than I did about any given subject and would therefore have already thought about the things that I was thinking through.  More times than not I have seen that people were thinking through the same things that I was but perhaps not in the same order.  Every time this happens, it makes me feel like I short change myself for the amount of knowledge I actually do have to offer even if I have not been in a position as long as someone else or hold as many degrees as they do or have had as many rounded experiences or education as they.

It reminds me of classroom experiences in a time when I would not ask questions because I figured everyone else already knew the answer and feared I would look unprepared or worst, stupid and hold the class up.  Somewhere along the line I learned that everyone else had that very same question but everyone else was thinking as I was and therefore the question never got asked unless someone was brave enough.  I have come a long way from someone who never asked questions to someone who although still hesitates, will bring myself to ask the question anyway because I know there is at least one other person who could benefit from hearing the answer as well.

Charge to self: Speak up even if you have to do it in a questioning manner versus one that is more definitive.

If the Shoe Fits…keep dreamin’

I have been grateful to have experiences at a couple of different types of institutions of higher learning.  I have interned at a community college and a small private of 500 students that focused on culinary arts and hospitality management, studied at a ‘ginormous’ research I institution in the south, and studied and worked full time at a small liberal arts college in the north.  All of these combined experiences have provided me with much opportunity to think about institutional fit.  I have pretty much come to the conclusion that I would prefer a small liberal arts institution or a community college in a large city, both in the eastern part of the country. 

A small liberal arts college is ideal for me because I believe that I would have greater opportunity to build deeper relationships, and also have an opportunity to wear many different hats as I tend to like to know a little about a lot versus a lot about a little.  A community college experience in a large city is intriguing to me and an experience that I think I would value due to the unique open door access of community colleges and the sheer number of different types of people you are liable to encounter in a larger city who could potentially be students the community college. 

While I think I have a grasp on the institutional fit by way of type and location, I think I have also come to a conclusion that I need to be in a place where things have not quite been implemented or caught up to date but where there is a passion and drive to create better environments.  For example, my summer internship was at an institution that in their one residence hall, which housed about 70-80 students, their RAs did not have a formal training on how handle the demands of their position.  This was something that was recognized and desired by administration and staff and something that I could have seen myself implementing.  I believe this desire to be at an underdeveloped institution who desires to be better comes from my tendency to prefer starting projects over taking over already established ones.  I would much rather begin something from the ground up than inherit something that is already a well oiled machine and I believe this is because I tend to understand things better when I know the “why” behind the “what” and that is best understood when I am the one creating it.

When considering my ideas of institutional fit and underdevelopment, I think it is important to also consider how this may be used to understand the type of position I would like and how that might differ depending on the type of institution.  After an interview that I recently had, I think that while there are things you can predict within this ‘fit talk’ most of the time it really needs to be taken on a case by case basis.  I had an interview for a position that was probably a dream job pre graduate school, which I had only realized after applying (but really realized after an interview.)  The position was very narrowly focused at a small liberal arts institution.  In my mind I thought although the position focus was narrow that because it was at a smaller institution I would have greater opportunity to wear different hats.  However, I had to take into account the unique culture of the institution to realize that where I may have been able to wear many hats within this position at a similar institution, there really was no time to do it at this one because of the needs of the those who the position worked very closely with.  It was only after the on campus interview that I began to question what I previously thought about intuitional and positional fit as well as old dream jobs versus new ones.  Just when I thought I had it figured out, my world was “shook.”

Searching for a J-O-B, Understanding a C-A-R-E-E-R

This job search has been like a job in itself and I often wonder if I am being comprehensive enough in my search.  While I tend to think I know what I am looking for, as I go through the search it seems as if my interests begin to change and that what I think I want to do now may be very different from what I wanted to do months and even years ago.  So when I say comprehensive, I question if I am leaving room to search for the areas that I may like to explore as well as the areas that I believe I have always wanted to be a part of .

For the longest, all I have ever known is that I want to work in multicultural services working specifically with racially and ethnically underrepresented students in their holistic development within their higher educational career.  This was most likely influenced by my experiences up until graduate school including my previous job where I advised student organizations that focused on cultural and social justice issues.  In addition to that, as an undergrad my academic and co-curricular activities were focused on the experiences of marginalized people and a little on the understanding of privilege. 

During my graduate program I really did not work much with racially or ethnically marginalized groups as most of the students I worked with were White students.  This was mainly due to the positions I held and not because it was a predominantly White institution (as my full time experience was at a predominantly White institution as well).  My positions included Alcohol and Drug Education Programs (ADEP) and Residence Education.  I rarely ever worked with students of color in ADEP and if we review the strong correlation between SES and race, being that I was the hall director for one of the most expensive residence halls to live in, I literally could probably count on both hands the number of students of color in my building.

I believe it was due to the experiences I had with racial majority students that I began to like the challenge of understanding their perspectives and figuring out how I could create cross cultural communication experiences between them and racially underrepresented students.  I got accustomed to sharing my own experiences as a racially underrepresented student.  I think I gained a better understanding in the last couple of years that many White students do not understand the experiences of racially marginalized groups because they are not taught to.  We as a society within our many institutions, systemically minimize and naturalize the experiences of underrepresented people so that when it comes to building relationships the real lived experiences are not easily understood, which often causes a lot of strife between communities.  It is this greater understanding along with many others that I believe my desire to work specifically with racially disenfranchised student populations has broadened and now I would like to work with creating greater modes of communication between the privileged and the oppressed.

In my collective experiences I have also grown to understand the connection between academia and student affairs.  Before I probably would have said things like, “student affairs is the other side of academics,” but now I look at it more as a component of education where academics is also a component.  I am intrigued with the maturity that has taken place in how I think about my profession and how I am better able to articulate its importance.

I look at a holistic education as a three pronged instrument, by where we learn through cognitive, affective and kinesthetic means.  Cognitive learning is the ability to stimulate our brains intellectually.  Affective learning I believe is the learning that takes place when the material you’ve taken in cognitively is personally related to you and emotionally affects you and creates your mind.   Kinesthetic learning is the hands-on learning where a student has the opportunity to put what they have intellectually learned and emotionally connected to actually living it.  I believe both academia and student affairs work together to create this three pronged learning, or holistic education.  For example, one of the reasons I chose to go into Africana Studies and Sociology was because I was learning things that really connected to my lived experiences, which I understood through the activities I did under a student affairs guidance, which also gave me the opportunity to apply what I was learning in my daily living through my actions, language and relationships with others.

This kind of understanding of holistic learning along with a practicum experience I had really sparked my interest in academic advising because I saw it as an opportunity to support holistic education from a perspective I was not normally used to engaging in.  It is now one of the areas that I am exploring as conduct my job search, which is something I never thought I would ever be interested in.

You believe me in my jeans and t-shirt, right? RIGHT??

I watch a lot of What Not To Wear.  I enjoy watching the quick transformations that people make on the show while getting some style advice on how to wear things that fit your body and lifestyle.  One of the most interesting things that inevitably happens at the end of the show is that participants not only change the way they dress (with the help of Stacy and Clinton) but something inside of them shifts related to the way they feel about themselves.

Usually as the show progresses we as the viewer begin to understand that the way they dress seems to always come from the way they feel about themselves or view themselves.  These are often women—which shows how much emphasis we put on the way women present their external and for whose view is that really for? 

Many times along the story line we learn that either they are a caretaker and forget about themselves or they have body image complexes that disengage them from finding clothes that make them feel good mainly because inside they do not feel confident about their body.

Perhaps one of the most upsetting things to me is that Stacy and Clinton’s main mantra to these ladies are “you don’t look your part” or “you don’t look your age” or “what do you think people think of you when they see you dressed like this?”  It’s upsetting to me because of the emphasis we put on dress and it’s not different in higher education.  However, any of my qualms with this whole dress thing is just a tantrum because the REALITY of it is that dress is important to how we initially categorize someone and we rely heavily on symbols and indicators to create a picture about something or someone before we ever really know or understand them.

In one episode, one of the participants said she was feeling like she was hiding behind a style of her own that she tried to preserve for so long and wound up hiding from herself and once she knew how to dress she gained this understanding.  Another participant talked about her disgust of how people put too much stock into clothing and that it should not define you….but in the end she talked about how sexy she felt in her new clothes and how wonderful it was to have this new sense of style.  Many of the participants were concerned about bringing attention to themselves as a whole or to certain areas of their body and therefore would wear things like big sweaters or just jeans to hide behind so that no one would pay attention to them and they could fade into the background. 

 I say all of this to relay my views on clothing.  As I said above, I think we put too much emphasis on it and determine how we will interact with someone based on the clothing that we encounter them in.  That sounds tantamount to looking at a person’s skin color or features and making assumptions about their race, ethnicity or culture and predetermining things about them and how you will decide to interact with them.  I kind of relate it to the number of times White women will use the word “girlfriend” with me because they perceive that if I am Black that I use that phrase when speaking to my women friends…I do not, but I won’t hear them use it with other women who are not Black.

Throughout my two years in my graduate program, I believe a lot of focus was put on image as it relates to dress.  “Dress for the job you want” is a common phrase that indicates if you want an upper level administration job then you should be producing that image right now through wearing suits and other ‘professional’ clothing.  I get it, I really do, we put stock into how a person dresses and if you see someone in a suit all of the time that speaks to how well they will succeed in life right?  I don’t think so, I’ve seen some fools in suits.  And, wise people in sweats and a tee.

So how do I dress for myself while dressing for others secondly?  I don’t know, but if I want to be respected in some circles to a certain extent there are some things I need to take seriously (at least at first).  My fiancés always says if you are doing things that are not fun to you then you need to be the one to make it fun.  I thought about this in terms of dress and thought of hot pink.  To me hot pink is the epitome of fun. 

          Power of Hot Pink:  hot pink to me symbolizes fun, lightheartedness, and         simplicity….it’s a way for me to realize not to take myself too seriously while     maintaining my personality.

Whenever I am shopping for clothing for my business wardrobe I definitely try to find hot pink pieces to include, that to me makes it fun and bearable…for now.

Tin Man had a heart.

Random person: So you're going to be a teacher or a principle?

Me: Well not exactly.  So you know how colleges and universities have academics?

Random person: Yeah.

Me: Well I'm the co-sponsor to that.  I get to do the really fun stuff that some may think is fluff...but if they only knew...

That’s usually how the conversation goes once I tell someone what I’m going to school for.  Then they look at me like “oh, I really don’t get it but I’ll pretend like I do by saying…”

Random person: So you work with students to put on programs so they have something to do?

Me: Sure.

It never frustrates me when people do not understand what I do, I actually kind of like it, it gives me a little mystery or it’s like I have a little inside joke; probably because I really do like what I do.  Working with students is crazy fun and even the unfavorable situations many times are still very rewarding. 

It’s some of the other stuff I don’t agree with…like the way higher education is increasingly being run like a business where the intention and purpose behind education is for the M-O-N-E-Y.  I didn’t sign up for that, but the more and more I learn about the field the more of what I realized I did not know.  

Working for a year and a half at a college before I pursued a masters in this stuff gave me only a crumb of the monster cookie that is higher education.  Mainly I speak about the political nature and the business fundamentals used in its systems.  Unfortunately, it is unrealistic for me to believe that politics and money grabbing are avoidable, it’s the society we live in and it is what it is.  And, you know what?  I’d be okay with these things so long as students were not negatively affected. 

I often think of people in our society’s businesses (higher ed included) as robots set on autopilot where the only thing that fuels them is money, power and control over resources.  It will be impossible to avoid interactions with people who are founded on this philosophy and even more impossible to survive if I don’t know how to think like these robots.  And let me interject, I do not believe all people operate under the auspices of malice and cut-throat politics, but it is worth noting that those who do are very much present.

But how do I navigate a system that I think impedes upon the purpose of what we do (the students) and how do I deal with a culture of expectations where money is the goal?  I decorate my tin. 

In other words, I’ll be okay with moving like a robot so long as it wears hot pink…or dances and laughs…or thinks with positivity and speaks with kindness…and understands that money may be power but is just paper without humanity.  I just don’t want my clarity to be muddled while I'm guiding my students. 

A famous sociologist, I cannot remember which one, once said that you can never really live outside of the box, there are always boundaries, even thinking outside of the box is playing within it. That’s LIFE as we made it.  Decorating my tin will at least give me some satisfaction that although still inside, I’m playing on the edge.