Exemplary | corykirbycsp

Exemplary

Advising and Supporting

1 on 1’s with Career Center students, Career Center Student Ambassadors, and Student-Athletes

Foster trust through culturally inclusive listening skills (p. 10).
Facilitate individual decision-making and goal-setting (p. 10).
Challenge and support students and colleagues (p. 11).
Seek opportunities to increase one’s knowledge and helping skills for students with specific concerns and interface with specific populations (p. 11).
Know and use referral sources and exhibit referral skills in seeking expert assistance (p. 12).

Advising and supporting has been a major part of the experience I have gained throughout the field experiences I have been involved with. Working with students in the Career Center, I am expected to hold five 60-minute appointments a week for students to meet up with me. These sessions range from creating and reviewing resumes all the way to looking for a job, internship, or graduate program. Each meeting with a student is always different and you never know what direction the conversation could go. Before each appointment we are told who the student is, what their major is, what year they are, have they ever been to the Career Center before, and what is their reason for attending the Career Center. However, their reason listed is not always the only thing they want to discuss in their conversation with a counselor. Every appointment I have with a student I give them my undivided attention and always start the conversation with, “what brings you in today” is a good way to see what is the student really would like to discuss in our conversation together.

Asking pointed questions throughout the appointment helps me make sure I am addressing the reason they visited the Career Center in the first place. There is a lot to unpack in an appointment with a student because typically they are new to writing resumes, cover letters, and applying for an internship. Since there is a lot to discuss, I always ask multiple times during their appointment, “what questions do you have” to help the student think back to what they are wanting to get out of their time in the office. The question “what questions do you have” is a strategy I learned as an Orientation Leader to insinuate that folks do have questions to ask rather than receiving a “yes” or “no” type of response.

To best help students I typically ask for a physical copy of a resume or cover letter so I can write notes on their documents so they can go back to the document and remember what was discussed in their appointment. Also, I will jot down or share with students about BG alumni who they can seek out for expert assistance. I do not want to share wrong information with the students, so I will support them by providing them references to speak with for a real understanding of their future career path.

The difference between the career counseling appointments compared to Career Center Student Ambassadors (CSA’s) and student-athletes is that I meet with them on a regular basis. Arranging consistent meetings with these students helps us build rapport and trust with one another to help establish making long term decisions for the semester along with setting academic and personal goals. During my meetings with student-athletes we discuss each of the classes they are in, the grades they have earned, upcoming assignments, and how to prepare for upcoming exams or projects. After meeting with the students, I log the information they share with me on a Google Drive spreadsheet that helps the Student Athlete Services staff stay organized among the 50+ students we oversee. Utilizing the Google spreadsheet is a way for me to pick up on academic trends. When students are struggling in a class, I refer them to a student tutor who has taken the same course or familiar with the content. Having one on one tutoring is another person the student-athlete can build trust and help them maintain a decent GPA and NCAA eligibility.

As for the CSA’s, I have five CSA’s I oversee where we hold bi-weekly meetings to go over upcoming events they will be working, reflect on past events to improve the programs overall, and most importantly their academic performance. This group of students is very academically focused and the conversations we have go in a different direction because they have a strong sense of how to get help and what they did wrong to improve their grade. If grades are not going the way the CSA would hope, I challenge them and support them to find a new alternative and study approach in hopes of earning a better grade than they received previously. Additionally, we talk about career aspirations and how we can work together to get them where they want to be either for a summer internship or post-graduation position. Identical to the students I work with in the 60-minute appointments, I refer them to BG alumni who are working a similar field to help them have an inside track on what their profession is truly like.

Leadership

Lead CSA meetings: CSA Agenda

Identify one’s own strengths and challenges as a leader and seek opportunities to develop leadership skills (p. 19).
Build mutually supportive relationships with colleagues and students across similarities and differences (p. 20).
Encourage colleagues and students to engage in team and community building activities (p. 20).
Seek out training and feedback opportunities to enhance one’s leader and leadership knowledge and skill (p. 20).
Convene appropriate personnel to identify and act on solutions to potential issues (p. 20).

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Supervising Career Center Student Ambassadors (CSA’s) has been an impactful experience gained while working the Career Center. There are 10 CSA’s who represent the Career Center and are able to make connections with their peers around campus. Having 10 ambassadors around campus allow for myself and the other GA supervisor to hear and know what students on campus are looking for from the Career Center. The supervisors are intentional when it comes to holding bi-weekly staff meetings in order for everyone on the team, including the supervisors, to be on the same page. The one hour meetings allow for any feedback and training to occur to enhance one’s leadership skill and knowledge.

The GA supervisors have not held supervisory roles before so learning through this experience together has made our relationship stronger and has made us grow our trust with one another too. Building mutual support through the highs and lows of this position is one of my favorite parts of holding this position. The two of us have been able to address our strengths and weaknesses through this leadership role. The best part of the position that we do a great job at, and we have been informed of this by a colleague, is that we have really great chemistry. When we run our meetings, we do not talk over one another and we know each other’s tendencies so we can interject in reason. A crowd can recognize when a presentation and tandem does not work well together. To have someone who you can bounce off one another seamlessly during a presentation is a way to exemplify positive leadership skills.

When we run CSA bi-weekly meetings, we have established a routine with the CSA’s best interest in mind. We want to always check-in with each other so we go around the room asking folks what their high and low is of the week. This is a way we have found teammates cheering on their team when folks are excited about life. Additionally, when CSA’s share low points of the week, it is a way for others to relate and know they are not alone if a test or project goes bad or how to handle a personal issue. Building community through the highs and lows amongst the 10 CSA’s is a team builder that is built in each meeting so we can build mutually supportive relationships.

Along with the building community activity at the beginning of each meeting, we find it important for our students to gain training and learn new ways to enhance their leadership skills, knowledge, and career development. Every meeting, the last 30 minutes of each the meeting, the GA’s will bring up a new professional development topic centered around suggestions the CSA’s have provided or topics that are applicable to the CSA position that we believe will best suit them in the near future. Professional development topics that have been presented are body language/non-verbal’s, negotiation strategies, elevator pitch, interviewing, and how to grow and maintain their professional network. Since the most of our team is younger students, learning this information at this point in college should give them a step up compared to their peers around campus.

After each meeting the both GA supervisors provide one another feedback on what went well and what are areas we could have spoken more or less on. Since we are new at this and we both want to grow as supervisors and leaders, we critique one another by identifying areas where our leadership skills can grow. When a professional development activity or presentation does not go over well with the CSA’s we look to find what could have been done differently to see better results in the future. As well, when we did the negotiation presentation, students were asking questions and were attentive on how to properly hold a negotiation discussion with their future supervisor. Seeing the students invest in a presentation is a testament to us speaking on a topic they feel is relevant to where they are at in their career development.

Organizational and Human Resource

SCORE! Guide

Design a professional development plan that assesses one’s current strengths and weaknesses, and establishes action items for an appropriate pace of growth (p. 23).
Implement strategies to motivate individuals and groups who are apathetic or disengaged with campus life (p. 23).

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*SCORE! Guide is in final stage before being published

The Career Center had a Career Guide book that was available to students that provided a framework for students to follow when it came to writing a resume, cover letter, a college career readiness plan, and elevator pitch materials. I was pitched the idea at the beginning of the CSP program to put one together for student-athletes specifically. There was an example that came from Colgate University which is where the idea came from. Creating a career guide for student-athletes was a project that I could call my own and would be an artifact that I could take with me to the next institution I would work at.

The project consists of a manual that student-athletes can utilize that is specifically designed for them. The manual has been credited with the title as the SCORE! guide. Student-athletes get caught up in their sport that they tend to not think ahead or understand how to express the skills they have gained or enhanced from their time as a college athlete. When it comes time to construct a resume, cover letter, or do their first job interview, they are not able to put into words all of their achievements and drawbacks they have faced. The SCORE! guide provides specific examples they can relate to or reflect on that will bring to life how their time as a student-athlete has prepared them extremely well to be ready for the next chapter in their life. The SCORE! guide also highlights various resources on campus that student-athletes have access to that can help them develop a professional development plan needed to succeed. Student-athletes not only have the Student Athlete Services office at their disposal but they also have their coaches and professors who have professional knowledge and a professional network that would be willing to help them reach their goals once they enter athletic retirement.

Putting together a professional development plan for student-athletes has been very rewarding since I am able to incorporate the knowledge I have learned in the Career Center along with the experiences I have gained while working in Student Athlete Services. Combining both experiential learning opportunities helps me make sure the student-athletes needs are being met while having knowledge on Career Center resources that the Student Athlete Services office may not be as familiar with. Evaluating, reviewing, and assessing what these students need is an essential tool that will help them recognize their growth from year to year.

Creating the SCORE! guide has been a lengthy process. Reframing an idea another university had done more than five years ago and making it my own has been a bit of a challenging. At least having the framework at least gave me an idea on what direction I could go that would be suitable to the student-athletes at BGSU. However, in order for it to be our own I had to determine whether this manual would be a product of the BGSU Career Center or BGSU Athletics. After creating it and thinking about who would update it and have access to the most up to date career advice, I thought it would be best to have it stay within the BGSU Career Center. Having ownership in the Career Center will promote for a continuous relationship to exist between the Career Center and Student Athlete Services after I graduate. The hopes of putting together the SCORE! guide will be a way for the Career Center and Student Athlete Services office to implement strategies that will help motivate this student population when it comes to their career endeavors.

What I will take away from constructing, organizing, and planning the SCORE! guide from start to finish is how long a project can take to make it to the public’s eye. There are a lot of variables and eyes that need to see the product before it can be finalized. This piece has been frustrating since I have been working on it for a year and half. Taking ownership of this project gives me a reality check on what goes into a large scale project and what are some barriers I can be aware of when I lead another project in the future.

ACPA—College Student Educators International & NASPA—Student Affairs Administrators in

Higher Education (2016). ACPA/NASPA Professional Competencies Rubrics. Retrieved from: https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/ACPA_NASPA_Professional_ Competency_Rubrics_Full.pdf.