My Philosophy

As I think about my personal brand after two years of being the College Counseling and Student Development (CCSD) program, I would describe myself as a scholar-practitioner. As I reflect back on my body of work and the student affairs subject matter expertise that I have developed most skill in - academic and career advising, I want to highlight that I have not abandoned my former engineering training but instead found a new creative avenue to apply my problems solving skills to the field of higher education instead.

 

One of the key takeaways that I wrestled with for a long time was the question: Is it possible to find satisfaction and contentment at work while earning a respectable living? For me, the answer was a “yes and” which is what propelled me to move away from my illustrious career in technology consulting in New York City and pursue a career in higher education instead which I have found to be personally rewarding so far. My philosophy and attitude towards life has since shifted dramatically mostly positively which is something that I constantly aspire to help my students find in their lives, especially as they battle the challenges of being young professionals while being knee-deep in their academic pursuits. Some of the ways I practice what I preach is through championing best practices of intrusive advising and motivational interviewing in my advising appointments. I am also a big proponent of helping my students lead lives that are enriching, enlightening and positive for them which I often do by helping my students identify their core values and passions in life and how they can find ways to integrate these into their daily lives in a holistic manner. I am also increasingly cognizant that the nobility of this outlook does have limitations in that I may not be a one-stop-shop for every student’s needs. And that this is okay; referring students to other campus centers and personal role models that they have in friends or family, is not a personal failure but a more effective way of leveraging the support systems that are already in place. One of the most profound lessons I learned from my stint as a technology consultant is the notion that knowing where to find the right information is a lot more valuable than knowing all the information. I think this approach also allows me to dive deeper into my students’ motivations for their own goals and underlying aspirations without projecting my ideas on them prematurely, thereby giving them space to think critically about what makes sense for them in line with theories of Self Authorship and Learning Partnerships Model (Chunoo, 2020). In essence, I aim to encourage my students to be in the driver’s seat in their higher education journey and me serving more as a collaborator that they can use as a sounding board to help them find a navigational route to the final destination of their choosing.

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With the newfound awareness that I have developed over the course of my journey in the CCSD program about my D8 social identities, my biggest takeaways have been my positionalities in each of them and how they inform the way power dynamics that I find myself entrenched in on a day-to-day basis. With this newfound awareness, I consider myself to lead my work with social justice integrated into each fibre of my student affairs practice rather than treating it as separate entity that is an addition to my work. I also have evolved to believe more strongly in the power of compassion rather than empathy. The biggest difference between the two, as I understand it, is that compassion is having empathy and then taking making actionable change about it. I therefore advocate for solidarity and allyship as I find them to be more influential and realistic than attempting to relate to each student’s unique higher education journey. Ultimately, my mission statement is that I believe in empowering each student to find their own voice and amplifying it through our work together.

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References

Chunoo, V. S. (2020). Leadership Learning Partnerships: Self-Authored Leadership through the Learning Partnerships Model. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2020(168), 97– 108. https://doi-org.scsuproxy.mnpals.net/10.1002/yd.20412