By Rachel Paris, SAA 2020
When I first began my higher education journey, my end goalwas to become a pediatrician. I wanted to be able to change the world throughmedicine and my undergraduate degree would set the foundation for me gettinginto medical school and completing the necessary training for a medical doctor.Yet, during my senior year at my alma mater, Grand Valley State University(GVSU), I began to question my path post-graduation. I am not sure if it wasthe pre-graduation jitters or I finally reflected on what the next journey ofmy life would be and if I was ready for it. Since I was just a semester awayfrom graduating, I knew I wanted to just complete my undergraduate degree, butalso tried to explore the nonprofit field as best as I could throughinternships and elective courses. After four years, I graduated with myBachelor of Science and decided to embark on a gap year to reflect and reframewhat chapter I would embark on next.
When thinking about my fondest memories and experiencesduring my undergrad, the role of being a Resident Assistant and involvement ina leadership organization topped every other experience. I reflected uponmyself and began to think about why I loved those experiences and who made theexperience wonderful. I began to reach out to my mentors in student affairs andhigher education and began to learn more about the field and their careers. Themore I learned the more I found myself reflecting on how I would helpcontribute to students’ lives and their experiences at higher education institutions.I have always held educational roles in my work experience. At 16 being a swiminstructor, to high school as swim coach and captain of my team, and especiallyas an RA during my undergrad experiences. All of these positions throughout mylife possessed educational roles. Education has always been a part of who I am,what I am, and who I am going to be. I finally found my passion and began the nextsteps of applying to student affairs and higher education graduate programsacross the country.
Yet, when I finally decided on coming to MSU and enteringinto my first graduate class, I was not prepared for such a flip in teachingand learning. I had grown accustomed to sitting in lecture halls with close toa hundred people as my professor would lecture for the period and studentswould be taking notes. For my general educational requirements, I took oneinterdisciplinary sequence for an entire academic year, which allowed me tobypass taking multiple courses from different disciplines. Now being in a graduateeducation course, professors were asking me what I thought about readings andhow I applied theories into practice. At times I would just sit and draw ablank and wouldn’t know what to say or think. I was new to the pedagogicalapproach to education and felt overwhelmed with the new knowledge and framing.I felt it was difficult at times to even contribute to class discussionsbecause for four years I was told what to think, how to think, and what is mostimportant to think about.
Yet, through the transition and moving into my secondsemester of graduate school, I began to grow in my knowledge and experiences instudent affairs and education. I was a sponge in the first semester, listening,observing, and trying to make sense of the content presented to me. I needed toallow myself to transition and process all of the information before I couldapply it to my framework of knowing. Now thinking back, I wish I had givenmyself more grace and understanding to transition into a new way of thinkingand learning. It was like graphing an exponential function, a little slowergrowth in the beginning then the curve becomes much steeper as the points curveupward. The graph is like me, always growing and moving in a positivedirection. It may have been slow in the beginning, but like me, I am stilllearning and growing each and every day. I am proud to be an educator withbackgrounds in STEM and education. I know my journey was not direct, but it hastaught me so much more than I could have ever imagined. I am excited to take myexperiences and knowledge and help with students who may be experiencing asimilar situation of changing their majors or adjusting to a new discipline. AndI will still be changing the world one student at a time.