>> I love, love, love that the students have a great relationship with me,
I love that the students are comfortable with sharing things,
I have students...to give you some case examples.
I have students that talk to me about self-destructive behaviors,
so cutting is an example, self-harm.
I have students that talk to me about alcohol abuse;
I have students that talk to me about sex.
So students will come in and talk to me, at first about their schedule freshman year
and sophomore year and I've developed a relationship with them
by the time they are juniors and seniors,
where it's so much deeper then me just advising them on the context of college.
I actually know them so when I'm writing them a recommendation I actually can really advocate
for them.
Some challenges that I face, I would say number one the first challenge is managing parent
expectations, our is school is expensive, tuition wise, and so when you recognize
that these parents pay a lot of money and their child is a minor they still are heavily involved
in that students' academic career.
So I will have parents that will call me 3 times in a day and send me two e-mails and I have
to manage that and manage that expectation so that is challenging.
I would say another aspect that's challenging is just dealing adolescent development.
Adolescents tend to blow things out of portion on a regular basis
and not because they're not wonderful people but if they get an F on a class,
it's the end of world to them and so it is understanding where they're at and being willing
to drop everything to be available for them in that moment.
Does my work follow me home?
I wished I could tell you no but when you're dealing with people
and emotions, yes, your work follows you home.
You just need to know how to compartmentalize it.
Is there anything I wish I could change about my job?
Smaller case load would be the first thing, I would say ideally, like I was saying,
it's somewhere between a 100 to 150 would be an ideal case load.
I would say I wished that parents and students who didn't bring baggage or issues that I have
to deal with so as I was saying before there are situations where a parent will call me 3 times
and send two e-mails in one day and I have to deal with that.
So I have to figure out a way to say you don't need to that anymore.
So an addendum to the challenge, challenges and aspects of life, your job will require you
to collaborate with people that have different expectations of how a counselor should be,
you have to collaborate with teachers, who have no idea what it is to be empathetic to a student
at times and teachers who are passionate about their single subject that they are teaching.
So one of the biggest challenges is creating harmony or getting people
to see things from a different lens.