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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment