2.09.2009

from the desk of...candidate #4

I should have known.

Residence Life. The career choice was obvious. It was always there, right in front of my eyes like a brilliant, beaming neon billboard. Student Affairs, helping college students become leaders, inspiring others to find their potential, serving a campus community. It makes perfect sense. That’s what I’ve been doing all this time. It’s what I’m good at. It’s what I enjoy doing.

Yet it took me two college degrees, half a dozen terrible jobs, and a decade of false starts for me to recognize it, like coming out of a dream and seeing what’s REALLY real. Why did I take so long to notice it? Maybe I needed to help myself before I could help others.

Back in 2000, I never thought of Res Life as a career option, it was always just something to do to pay for my room and board while I worked toward the ultimate in vague general degrees: a bachelors in Mass Comm. I eventually used my experience I gained as an RA to land a post-graduate job working for a student apartment community at a large southern state institution.

In 2006, I was an Asst. Hall Director while working on my masters degree in journalism. Again, the Hall Director gig was just something to do that covered room and board while working towards a non-related journalism degree.

Residence Life. It used to be just a temporary stopping point on my track towards a different location.

I should have listened to my conscious. It whispered to me during great moments while working. When an inexperienced, autistic student that I mentored turned his life around and became the Residence Housing Association Treasurer, I should have known.

When a once-aimless student that I coached started organizing hall programs of her own, I should have known.

When I was awarded “Community Builder of the Year” as an RA for getting upperclassman out of their spacious rooms to interact with their neighbors, I should have known.

When the Residence Hall Association I started won the Homecoming Spirit award, I should have known. All these times, my conscious whispered to me, saying “this is what you should be doing.”

My conscious also nagged me during moments of great despair. While I toiled in journalism for six months, it often whispered “You had a more fulfilling time working with students.” When I leased apartments for two years, every day the voice kept saying “I should go back.”

But I was a lug head. I quit working as a hall director to finish my journalism degree and start a career in journalism.

Life sometimes has interesting ways of kicking your ass in the right direction.

The journalism industry is in terrible shape. Not only is the industry going down the toilet, but the people I worked for, the people I interviewed were all cold, calloused individuals. I was writing uninteresting, uninspiring, little noticed stories. I was unhappy with my newspaper environment and the work I was doing. My editors didn’t like what I was doing.

All along I continued to think, “man, I miss my RAs and the students in my hall.”

Maybe the best worst thing that could happen did: I was fired from the newspaper job for dubious reasons that I attribute to my editors’ complete disdain for me.

I decided instead of looking for another job in the newspaper industry that it was now my time to really think about a career that would make me happy.

Now I finally decided to listen to that nagging conscious. It was right all along.

Residence Life.

Now, things have changed.

I’m fighting for my life to get a job in residence life, to continue to influence potential leaders, to help students realize their potential, while working on my potential as well. It’s what I want to do with my life, what I want to throw all my focus and energy behind. One Hundred percent. Total commitment. A hall director position means something to me because my work can be meaningful to others. Now, I know.

1 comment:

SHJobs said...

Nicely put. Good luck to you on your search. Your passion for what you do will be an asset to whatever institution you land at :-)