>> Being on a college campus there's
a cyclical nature to the work.
I love in September when a crop of new
first-year students and transfers arrives.
It's very exciting to me.
And I also enjoy when we get to May and
it's sort of like the end of the season
where we see a lot of our accomplished seniors
going off into the next stage of their lives.
So that part of it, too, I think plays into
the everyday of being on a college campus
and certainly one of things that
I love about the work that I do.
Just in general with my day to day challenges,
I think for me the fact that I'm working
at my alma mater helps me immensely
because I understand Rutgers
and I understand the Rutgers culture.
There's, I think, a lot of challenges in general
with the work that I do but mostly in being
at a university the scope, and
size, and complications of Rutgers.
So I feel like every day when I come
across different challenges I like to think
about the fact that my dad used to
joke with me when I was a student here.
He would say to me, "Part of what
you're learning at Rutgers is how
to deal with a bit of bureaucracy."
You know, when I would say I couldn't
figure out financial aid or I had to go
to a different office, he'd say, "Yeah.
What you're learning is just as important
as the classes that you're going to."
And it's how to manage these everyday life
issues; find the offices or people you need;
get the things done that you need; get the
resources that you need to get to the next step.
And I feel the thing that I learned as a
student: To be able to find those things I need,
find the people I need, get to the offices
I need really helps me in my day to day
when I'm trying to navigate Rutgers
now as a staff and an administrator,
where I'm out there trying to
figure out, "Well, what departments
or programs should I be partnering
with; who can I talk to?"
I also think in terms of the challenges
of Rutgers just how large it is.
One thing that's very challenging
is that we have
so many students here in
the New Brunswick campus.
And, you know, when we look at the numbers
of how many students engage with our office,
it's certainly not the numbers
that we hope to engage with.
You know, we know we can help a lot of
different students, but we realize the challenge
that they don't know where we are, they don't
know how we can assist them because there's
so many different resources at Rutgers and
there's so many different competing needs
and resources sometimes students
can't find us right away.
So that's definitely a challenge, but I think
having been here as a student and understanding
that culture is helpful for me in coming up with
creative ways to work with our marketing staff,
to reach out to faculty or other partners
on campus, to really try to connect
with students so that they know we're here.