Where Are They Now?

One book that I have been meaning to read is Job One. Job One follows a group of SA Grads AFTER graduation. Kind of like this blog does…except. It only follows me. While this book is nearly ten years old, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on where my classmates now are in their careers.

A lot of my classmates are in the same boat as me – they found jobs somewhere around graduation, started, and they are still there. I keep seeing a ton of Facebook statuses about everybody hitting their one year mark. For those individuals not in ResLife, I see a LOT of apartment searching right now. Why? People quickly signed leases since they NEEDED to move and now that they know they are staying longer, they are looking for a nicer place or they are moving in with friends they’ve made.

Two classmates went back to school. Well, one just kept on trucking and started doctoral classes WEEKS after we graduated. The other wound up getting a job at a school with a doctoral program and enrolled after she finished her first year. While another degree isn’t on my agenda anytime soon, I am very proud of these two for continuing.

I have a few classmates that did not hit their one year mark for a variety of reasons. All but one finished out the academic year at their institutions but have recently started at their new jobs. Their reasons for moving included wanting to be closer to significant others and family. One got a job at Grad School State – although in a different department than where she worked while we attended school. And the one who didn’t make it through a school year? He had some MAJOR life changes. Shortly before Thanksgiving, his wife was offered a job on the other side of the country. They could not turn down this offer, she makes a LOT more than he does. His wife moved out before Christmas and he followed in January. He was going to start looking for jobs but then they found out that she’s expecting! He’s decided that he’s going to be a stay at home dad once the little one arrives this fall, so finding a job for just a few months didn’t make sense.

There were some people that didn’t get job offers last summer. One just kept doing temp jobs at Grad School State before getting offered a job at a school a few hours away. Another moved to a pretty remote area of the country with her fiance where there really aren’t a lot of job opportunities. A third wound up with a job offer sometime last fall – but not in Student Affairs. He took it and he enjoys what he’s doing and he definitely applies the things he learned in our program, just to a different set of people.

I really want to get my hands on this book. I’m interested to see how my classmates compare to the students in the book!

TBT – That Time I Got De-Friended (Goodbye!)

You might have been wondering what prompted me to write that rant on Facebook de-friending. Well, as a reminder, I wrote it four years ago. As I said yesterday, these stories tend to be good ones. AND! This was from back in the day, before you could just hide someone from your news feed.

I wrote the pre-cursor to yesterday’s post in response to being de-friended. Oh, and I posted it somewhere that the “friend” would be able to easily see it. Passive aggressive? Yes. Worth it? Probably. You see, this came OUT OF NOWHERE. The person who did this was one of my best friends and her way of ending our friendship was by de-friending me on Facebook. That’s also passive aggressive. I probably would have NEVER wrote something like that had I discovered that some random classmate de-friended me. On with the story!

Flashback to Summer 2009. Neon was just sort of becoming a thing, the recession was at it’s worst, and nobody had jobs. I had a great group of friends that I had known seemingly forever. We loved hanging out and we had absolutely no problem with doing low key things, like watching TV shows or movies at someone’s house because we were all equally broke and couldn’t afford going out to dinner or shopping at the mall. One of our friends was KNOWN for being a drama queen and a major one upper. If you told her that your life was going well, hers was going SO MUCH BETTER. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you were down in the dumps, there was NO WAY things could be any worse than they were for her. While it was annoying, my friends and I tended to look past her antics because we all had the same twisted sense of humor.

We had been there through thick and thin for each other for YEARS and this summer we were ALL having a hard time. My parents weren’t working, one friend’s grandfather was on the decline, another friend worked at a camp for kids with special needs and it was really taking it’s toll on her. Our resident crazy girl (let’s call her Cray, makes it SO much easier) knew all this…so she proceeded to tell us how EVERYBODY in her family got laid off the same week and HER grandfather was sick as well….The life of Cray. The summer went on and suddenly Cray just stopped coming to things. She wouldn’t call or text in advance, she just wouldn’t show up. If we asked her where she was, she would just say that her grandfather was sick so she couldn’t make it. We didn’t want to pry too much and while we didn’t care if she missed pizza night, she started to miss some large, planned events like birthdays and holiday celebrations. At this point, we were still in contact with her and while she was willing to spill how hard it was with her family not working and her grandfather being ill, she never once asked any of us how we were doing. I’m pretty easy going so I just shrugged it off but my other two friends were getting angrier each week. The final straw for them came when she missed my birthday party without a word to any of us. I didn’t want to make waves, so I didn’t say anything, but I was really disappointed. The other two texted her asking where she was (her grandfather was sick so she couldn’t make it) and then vowed to stop speaking to her.

I’m honestly not sure if the other two said anything to Cray between my birthday party and a few days later when I posted on her Facebook wall, but she BLEW UP at me. I simply wrote a message on her wall asking how her grandfather was doing. I mean, she missed one of her “best friend’s” birthdays because he was sick, so I was worried! For some reason, this set her off but instead of calling me or texting or even privately messaging me, she wrote back on my Facebook wall saying that she couldn’t believe that I thought she was lying and that I was a terrible friend. Since I’m not a big fan of airing one’s dirty laundry on Facebook, I texted her and let her know that I was actually curious about how he was doing, but she just kept taking it the wrong way. Shortly after that, she wound up de-friending us.

I found out about this few weeks later. I figured things had cooled down and went to her Facebook just to say hi, only to find out that we were no longer friends. I let the other two know and they confirmed that she had also de-friended them. Additionally, her other “best friend” had de-friended all of us. Interesting. Anywho. I was honestly just shocked that she would do that. Looking back, I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised since she was known for being a drama queen.

Now that I’m older, I definitely have less friends but they are all people that I enjoy being around. Cray was basically the equivalent of a tornado – she sucked us into her mess and destroyed everything in her path on MULTIPLE occasions. While at the time I’m sure I thought it was the end of the world to lose her as a friend, you eventually realize that you won’t have all your friends “forever”. I also understand that you do fall out of touch with people, but occasionally you might want to reach out to them, which is why I don’t go de-friending people that I don’t talk to “anymore”. Hopefully I’ve moved out of the phase of my life where relationships are filled with “drama”. I thought it would all be over with high school, but as some people say, high school never ends.

I know it seems petty to get so upset over Facebook. It’s one thing to decide you don’t want to be friends with a person, but by deleting or blocking someone on Facebook, that’s also saying you don’t want the other person to ever know anything about your life again. I’m sure there are some people that deserve it (hi stalkers), but I tend to not defriend people I’m no longer friends with.

You Are The Weakest Link. Goodbye.

Alright kids, gather round. Today we’re going to talk about the ultimate burn in this day and age: being de-friended on some sort of social media. I originally wrote this back in 2009 when I swear I was the only person in my friend group with Twitter and things like Instagram didn’t exist yet. So let’s focus on Facebook because being de-friended on Facebook sucks every bit as much today as it did in 2009. I’m not really sure what the pre-Facebook equivalent would be. Being picked last for the kickball team? Someone not returning your calls? Being completely ignored, kind of like the episode of South Park where Cartman thought he was dead? Anywho. Let’s get on with this.

To de-friend someone on Facebook is basically saying “I never want to see you again. I want nothing to do with you. You are dead to me. I am cutting you out of my life completely.” Once your former lover/roommate/best friend de-friends you, your updates will no longer show up in their news feed. They won’t be forced to endure status updates, pictures posted, or Farmville notifications. But Author, what if somebody is just cleaning out their list or really doesn’t give a crap about your engagement photo shoot? Nowadays, there are ways to hide that stuff! I have plenty of people on my Facebook that post a little too frequently about their kids’ potty training that I selected to hide their updates. Also, you can hide updates from games and other things. The best part is that the other person doesn’t know you selected to hide their updates whereas if you de-friend someone and then they go to look you up for some reason, they are suddenly VERY aware of this de-friending.

Personally, I have only felt compelled to de-friend people on two occasions in my life. The first was a completely normal occurrence. Remember when Facebook was for college kids only? (Man, I’m really dating myself here.) And the best moment of your summer before freshman year was getting your college email address so you could get Facebook (or as it was known back in the day THE Facebook)? And how many random people you friended that were members of “FALL INCOMING CLASS 200X WOOOO!!” Yeah…well…after I finally arrived on campus and realized that I wasn’t actually going to be friends with all these people who I had told about my down alternative comforter and flamingo string lights, I did a little cleaning. Understandable? Yes. If you don’t know the person in real life, you can delete them. During Spring Semester, I became friends with a kid that was in one of my new classes and he actually CALLED ME OUT ON IT. He was like “Well we were Facebook friends and then you de-friended me.” Ummm…today is the first day I met you?!? But sure enough, when I checked my OLD messages, I had found out that months and months before this, we had gone back and forth about how his building was closer to the dining hall than mine. Real friendship right there. Sigh.

The other time I de-friended someone was later in my college career. I was having a bit of a stalker issue and it got to the point where I didn’t want him in my life anymore. I was doing a great job at avoiding him in person, but he would always make snarky remarks via Facebook AND he had started friending my friends to talk to them about me. I was young and at the time didn’t realize how serious the whole situation was so I simply de-friended him, thinking that MAYBE he’d take the hint. He didn’t. Instead, he re-friended me and included a little message. I don’t remember it word-for-word anymore but I’m pretty sure thought it was awfully rude of me to remove him from my friends list. I’m sorry. I didn’t like when you Facebook messaged me twenty times in one day. At this point, I had to take it one step further and block him. I had never blocked anybody on Facebook. At this point in time, my blocking knowledge was limited to AIM. I’m assuming it worked because I never heard from him (at least on Facebook) again. Also, I can’t search for him. So it does go both ways. That’s alright. I can live without his creepy/emo status updates.

So readers, what brings you to the point of having to de-friend a person? Did your break up leave you in your pajamas for a week with only your good friends Ben and Jerry for company? Did your best friend steal “yo man”? Sick of looking at somebody’s ugly mug? Or…more grown up problems…are you sick of hearing about somebody’s upcoming wedding EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.? These ridiculous situations always make for great stories, so put yours in the comments and get ready for tomorrow’s post!

The Lilly Pulitzer Online Sale

Today kicked off Lilly Pulitzer’s long-awaited online sale. It runs through Wednesday with special Facebook Flash Sales each day at 11 am. I was super excited for this sale, but unfortunately my car decided to die over the weekend and I have to be a responsible adult and spend my Lilly money on towing and repairs. Sigh.

So what lovely things am I missing out on? Well, the one thing I’m sure most girls are freaking out about are the sorority print items. These were at the warehouse sale and they went FAST! I always thought they’d make great big/little gifts, but they were too expensive. I’ve seen several people post on Facebook that they just purchased them as presents. Unfortunately Lilly doesn’t make a print for my sorority, otherwise I would have let my dead car sit in the lot until my next paycheck…

There are also a TON of dresses. The one thing with the dresses is that these items are final sale and there’s no try on room so you need to know your size. Personally, I am different sizes in different styles, so I stay away from dresses during the online sale unless I already own the style in a different color/print. Shirts are a MUCH safer bet since there’s a little more wiggle room with those. I also really love the scarves, except rumor has it that they are already all sold out!!

Unfortunately the sale’s popularity is also it’s downfall. The sale started at 8 am and the site crashed within the first fifteen minutes. Also, an item is not reserved until you pay for it. That means if you select something and then continue shopping, other shoppers have the chance to grab that first item. There have been reports of people going to check out, only for their orders to not go through. The company has been working on fixing it and they’ve even been responding to people’s Facebook comments – both the good and the bad. 

If you missed the Warehouse Sale or like bargains or just want more Lilly, you should definitely check it out. Let me know what you buy!

My Nail Polish Obsession

I can remember my first bottle of nail polish. I was super young…maybe four? My mom bought it for me. It was a weird shade of pink and I think Tinkerbell was pictured on the bottle. (Edit – It wasn’t actual Tinkerbell but it was called Tinkerbell cosmetics. HOW THE HELL DID I REMEMBER THAT?!)

It was made especially for kids and it was designed to peel off in one big piece. At the time, my mom was unaware that she was being a complete enabler. I was obsessed. I would paint my nails (okay and like half of my fingers) multiple times a day…I’d just peel the polish off and start again. I think at some point she took it away because I don’t remember painting my nails as a child again until I was older.

The next time I became interested in nail polish, I was around ten. Stores like Claire’s and Afterthoughts were super popular and they had nail polishes in every color of the rainbow. One of the party favors from my birthday party that year was a small bottle of blue nail polish. My friends and I would paint our nails all sorts of weird colors, at times making a full rainbow on our hands.

At some point I got sick of nail polish. I never had the time or patience to do my nails. It would chip and I wouldn’t fix it so it would look terrible. It just never looked nice. If I really wanted my nails done for some reason, I would go get them done.

And then I was introduced to a product that CHANGED MY LIFE. Okay, maybe not my whole life, but at least the life of my nails. Essie Good to Go Top Coat. It’s quick drying and makes my nails look super shiny. I feel like it also makes my nail polish last longer. I can also do more coats so it looks like a manicure from the salon. Also (and this might just be because I have a ton of coats on) when it starts chipping, it tends to peel off in one piece so I can easily paint the whole nail again.

Now that I like nail polish, stores like Ulta have become a dangerous place. It’s so easy to think that you’re only spending $8 on a nail polish…only to wind up with four in your basket!! I’m a big fan of Essie and OPI and I’ve heard good things about China Glaze. New brand to try? I think so.

First World Problem: I HATE Getting a New Phone

Let me tell you a story about a dear friend, my closest confidant – my iPhone. I met my iPhone on a beautiful late summer day two years ago. My iPhone has been there with me through thick and thin. It has never revealed its secrets, even about my frequent Google searches of “One Tree Hill Nathan Scott”. My iPhone has survived countless drops from varying heights and has been stepped on by my dog pretty much every time I’ve visited home. My iPhone and I have spent plenty of lovely afternoons Instagramming pictures in the park. However, all good things must end.

Lately, my iPhone has been that flaky friend that’s having a text convo with you and then suddenly stops responding for three hours, right as you ask some basic yes or no question. Really, iPhone, it takes you three hours to tell me that in fact you ARE available to go to the mall tomorrow? Bitch was probably texting all her other iPhone friends just to make sure nothing better was going on.

Okay, so maybe not really. But my phone has been freezing and shutting off and not letting me know that I have texts from my REAL friends that actually CARE about me. And the battery is TERRIBLE – the only way this phone could die faster is if somebody pointed a wand at it and said “Avada Kedavra!” I get it, it’s old. There’s been TWO new versions of iPhones since I bought this one. There’s been countless app updates and system updates. All these new apps are designed with the newer, faster, iPhone 5 in mind. No wonder my phone is running slow!

Recently, Charlotte from My Crazy, New York, Post Grad Life posted about phone shopping…like me, she has an ancient iPhone and needs to replace it. While she is debating between the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy, I know that I will be replacing my current iPhone with a new iPhone. Most people are excited at the thought of buying a new phone. It has gotten a lot easier…I remember in high school having to write down all of my contacts so I could later put them in one by one. Ugh! The stone ages! Most people like hearing about all the cool shit their new phone could do. They can’t wait to buy a new case and customize the ringtone and blah blah blah. Not me!

In high school and college, I had some friends who seemingly went through phones as frequently as they changed their underwear. I was ALWAYS being invited to Facebook groups because someone lost their phone or got it stolen or dropped it in the toilet. Not me. I had the same dinosaur of a phone all through high school and actually TRIED to lose it one summer and FAILED. (And then when my parents finally did buy me a new phone, I lost it three days later at the grocery store. Go figure. Luckily, I found it and was able to hold onto that beastly thing until the iPhone made its grand debut.) I may be one of like five college students in the history of the United States to do this, but I did not once lose, break, or get my phone stolen during college. I’m sure there’s some special sticker on my diploma to indicate this.

And then I graduated college. The year after I graduated college, I managed to break one phone and get THREE stolen. Now, it’s not like I was careless and left my phone on a table in the food court at the mall and then wandered away. No. One time it was stolen from my own home. Another time it was by a so-called “friend” of a friend. Each time, I had to buy a new phone. Cell phones seriously are a necessity in this day and age. So after that particular year, you could imagine why I HATE buying phones. I’ve included some more reasons (that are more applicable to the general population, not just those with shitty friends) below.

They’re Expensive

Cell phones are NOT cheap, which sucks because, like I said before, I can’t live WITHOUT my cell phone. Yes, I can live without an iPhone and after the first one got stolen, I did live without an iPhone. I had a series of those crappy pay-as-you-go phones for awhile. Those are also not as cheap as you think they would be, especially when your entire family plan is out of upgrades because you’ve had to replace your phone three times in five months. I know I should be setting aside money for my new phone, but I have other bills to pay.

It’s Not Quick and Easy

I like buying milk – I run into the store, find the carton of milk I want, pay for it, and leave. Done. I don’t really like buying bras. You have to try those on. That takes time. And buying a phone? You have to talk to some salesman to tries to make you spend more money than you want to spend (seriously, nobody uses those cases that clip onto your pants anymore) and then you have to wait for the phone to “activate” and all sorts of other stuff.

You Need MORE New Stuff

Depending on what phone you had and what phone you are buying, you might need to get all new accessories – cases, headphones, charger…suddenly your phone just got a lot more expensive!

And Then You Have to Set It Up

This. This right here. This is my least favorite part. I get home and I need to change my ringtone and set my alarms and put in my wifi password. I know they have the ability to transfer my contact, why don’t they have the ability to transfer my settings??

I know getting a phone is a really awesome thing and there are plenty of people who don’t have the money to get a new phone just because their old one is dying, but it honestly causes me so much anxiety!! I don’t know when I’m getting my new phone yet (I’m honestly holding out as long as possible) but when the time comes, I’m pretty sure I will need people to come with me and hold my hand.

The Uninvolved Student (Almost) One Year Later

Whenever I have an idea for a post, I write it down in a notebook. At this point, it’s this huge list with nearly 200 things. Obviously not all of them have made it to the blog – yet. Recently, I looked at some of the earlier stuff on my list that didn’t make it. A few of them jumped out to me as things that would be easier to write now. Others just need to be scrapped. It wasn’t a great idea then and it’s not a great idea now. Or worse, it’s no longer relevant. This post is a unique one. It’s an update to a post I never made.

Prior to the school year starting, when only RAs and athletes were on campus, my supervisor told me that one of my residents had requested to switch rooms. Let’s call her Cali. Cali was an student athlete and had moved in just a day or two earlier. Her roommate had not yet arrived but Cali knew that she did not want to live with her. Cali had transferred to PDFM U in order to be closer to home – previously she had been at a small school in California (I’m so clever with this nickname business). At her previous school and PDFM U, she had had roommate troubles. I had glanced at her file and it seemed that Cali just never really wanted to stand up for herself. Like many roommate issues, she had been asked if she had addressed the issue with her roommate and she always said no. She was given the chance to have a mediation but she would just shake her head. Cali did not seem to be a confident girl.

It turned out that Cali needed help moving into her new room. We were able to find a single and wanted her to move before the rest of the students returned to campus. Unfortunately this was not convenient for Cali’s mother and she complained that Cali would have to move by herself. I wound up helping with the move, which was not all that difficult. While we carried boxes and tote bags to her new room, I asked Cali about her time at her old school, specifically about her involvement on campus. She mentioned her sports team and then said that she had been in a sorority. Bingo! That’s my area of expertise. It turns out that we had her sorority on campus. I asked if she had thought about getting involved in her sorority here at PDFM U. Her eyes widened. “That’s something I can do?” She was genuinely surprised. Not only was Cali not advocating for herself, but she was not asking questions that she needed to in order to get where she needed to be. I’m honestly surprised that she came to our office to even ask for a room change (although I have a feeling it was her mother who most likely called and asked).

And so I was going to write about what a shame it was that this girl wasn’t involved on campus and could barely speak up and how I was so worried about her development. I’m honestly glad I waited to write this post because this past school year made a world of difference.

At the beginning of the school year, I made a point to meet with each Greek organization’s leadership. I let the women in Cali’s sorority know that Cali was a transfer student in their sorority. Just like Cali had been unaware that she could “join” her own sorority at a new school, the members did not know how the transferring process worked. I told them to contact their advisor and their national office, but in the mean time they should reach out to Cali. A few days later, I saw Cali sitting with some of the sorority members. By the end of the semester, she was a full fledged member!

Cali also got involved with different academic societies and was invited to work this year’s graduation ceremony, a privilege reserved for student who have displayed extraordinary academic and leadership qualities. In the spring, she applied for a position that is similar to an RA only with a smaller group of residents. The administrators had no doubt about hiring her – something that would have been incredibly unlikely only a year before.

One of my favorite parts about working in student affairs is getting to see a student grow. Many times, we don’t get to see it in only a year – you have to wait and watch a student go from freshman year to graduation day. I am glad that I got to see Cali’s transformation this past year and I am excited to see what senior year brings to her.

What remarkable transformations have you seen in your students?

The Return of Rachel

The best possible thing ever happened this week. My best friend, Rachel (name changed, obvi), moved to the city I live in to start grad school. Anybody would be excited to have their best friend join them, but knowing our past makes it all the more special.

Rachel and I met when we were five years old. We went to the same day camp and we had the same lunch box. Match made in heaven, right? Our moms set up a play date for us and got to talking and realized that we went to the same elementary school. Awesome! After that, we were pretty inseparable. We coordinated our Halloween costumes, we decorated each other’s rooms, and as we got older we spent WAY too much time at each other’s lockers.

We haven’t lived in the same town (let alone the same state) since we were seventeen. We went to different colleges and then worked in different cities. I went to grad school, she went to Europe. Now she’s back and I AM SO EXCITED!! I’ve already got plans to help her build some Ikea furniture. I know that doesn’t sound like fun, but I’ve never lived close enough to help her with anything like that before!

Like…this excited.

Of course every so often I have to come down from cloud nine and remember that we are both VERY busy people so it won’t be just like high school…I have my job and she has grad school. With RA training right around the corner, we’ve already had issues finding time we both had free to get together. I already have friends and obligations on my side of the city and I’m sure she will wind up with those things on her side of the city as well!

I always get slightly jealous of my friends that live in the same city as each other. I know it was my choice to take a job in a city where I knew nobody and I’ve done okay making friends, but that doesn’t stop me from being excited about Rachel’s return!!

Running

It seems like everybody is running these days. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re all reaching our mid-twenties and our years of eating terrible foods has finally caught up with us or if it’s because everybody spends too much time on social media and thus knows everything about everybody now. I’ve never been one to follow any trends, so I have not jumped on this running bandwagon.

Actually, I can remember one time that I ran on my own free will (i.e. not gym class and not being chased by a criminal/rabid dog). One of my friends from high school suggested on going for a run after school. I conveniently “forgot” my running attire the day of, but this girl knew me too well and had packed an extra set, sneakers and all. We got changed in the locker room and planned a route that went through the neighborhood next to our school. I don’t think either one of us thought this through before doing it…it was right when school let out…aka when everybody is DRIVING near the school. Her and I were moving at a snail’s pace and everybody was driving by honking. I think that experienced ruined running for me forever.

People used to just be content running their 5Ks and if they were a little more into it, marathons and triathlons. Now it seems that all sorts of crazy races are popping up!! I’m totally a fan of the color run and have even said that I would do one…if they weren’t always during the HOTTEST time of year. I do NOT want to run when it’s 90 degrees and humid. Can somebody please schedule one for like November or March??

While the Color Run sounds fun, there are plenty of races that make me wonder what sort of sane individual would actually agree to doing this…for FUN! And then I see all my friends sign up for it…what? For example, Tough Mudder. Not only are you running through mud, but I’m pretty sure this is the one with like barbed wire and electric fences and stuff. I REALLY want to know who was sitting around and came up with this idea and thought that people would buy into it. I also don’t understand CrossFit but I think that’s because my idea of “fun” is sitting outside with a drink in my hand.

There are also a lot of apps available to not only track how much you run or bike or whatever but also broadcast that to everybody who is your Facebook friend or Twitter follower. I am always incredibly tempted to make snarky comments on these posts. “Susie ran X miles this week!” “That’s real cute Susie, I walked probably X miles to my local dive bar and back!” I have a feeling these won’t be appreciated.

I guess things could be worse…instead of a trend that makes people healthier, more of my friends could have taken up competitive eating…or just eating in general.

So You’re In Grad School: August

Here we are. The start of a new school year. This is when I should have started my SYIGS series, you know, so it started with the school year. Oh well. If you’re new to this, SYIGS provides some tips as well as gives information on what to expect in a Student Affairs-esque grad school program. Everything I write is based on MY experience at Grad School State…your program might be somewhat different, but it shouldn’t be TOO drastic.

If you’re a first year student…

You’re probably getting ready to leave for grad school if you haven’t already. I’ve said it time and time again – grad school is VERY different from undergrad. It’s an adjustment and it will take you some time to get used to it. That’s okay. Oh, and you’ll probably also learn a theory that will later explain your behavior during this time period.

My first few weeks at GSS were jam packed with training for my assistantship…why yes, I was in ResLife! Not only did I have training for my position, but I also sat through all of RA training so I could know the campus and the procedures better. It was a big help, especially since GSS and Undergrad U were VERY different institutions.

GSS held a graduate school orientation. The ResLife office made sure to have it on their schedule so us newbies wouldn’t be missing anything important. It wasn’t like the fun-filled orientation that I went through as a student and that I saw GSS freshmen going through. No campus tours, no entertainment, no ice breakers. I was so confused! I went to a resource fair, but instead of showcasing the different departments on campus, I was provided with bank and insurance options. At one point I was told I needed to pick up my student ID, but I didn’t know where to do that! It was at this moment that I realized graduate student services is an area that will probably be on the upswing in the next few years…

Another eye opener was that there were a lot of people in my program OLDER than me. Many of the students had graduated from college and worked “real” jobs before realizing they hated being mindless corporate robots whatever they were doing and making the decision to start a new career. So at the end of the day while I wanted to go to the bar and get to know my new classmates, they had homes and husbands to get home to. Who does that?

I guess all of my previous “points” have been stories about my experiences, my major tip for this month is DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS. I can promise you that there will be somebody in your program or working at your assistantship who thinks they “know everything” and will roll their eyes at your question, but do not let that deter you! Training and orientation are the times to ask questions!

If this is your second year…

You might be a little bored right now. I’m sure there are training things that you are being forced to go to that you feel you don’t need to go to because obviously you learned it all before. Obviously. Yes, you might be bored, but please don’t let this attitude show! It might stop one of the new students from asking a question (see above).

I definitely recommend getting to know the new grad students in your program. Did you have a second year take you under their wing last year? Be that person for someone else! It is great to form a friendship like this now so you can help someone with this whole grad school process.

I had someone take me under their wing and then I took someone under my wing. I am in touch with both of these people. My “older” friend helped me as I was navigating the job search process. I just helped my “younger’ friend with hers and I also talked her through some tough decisions that she had to make during grad school.

No matter what year you are…

August is a crazy month for Student Affairs…students are returning, orientation is happening, training is happening, and of course there is a HUGE programming push during the first few weeks of school. Good luck to all of you out there!!