2014 in Review: Lessons Learned

For me, 2014 was a year to learn many lessons. Despite adversity working through my graduate assistant (GA) position I was still able to earn a 4.0 GPA in the Spring, Summer, and Fall semesters of 2014. Even though I typically don't like to place a lot of emphasis on GPAs, I still consider this to be a huge accomplishment for me. Earlier this year I was told by a supervisor of mine that I would be a failure; I've made it my mission to prove myself right and not to prove him wrong. I know I'm not going to be a failure. I simply care too much about students and their success in higher education for me to fail. 

For the purpose of this post I'm going to consider only some of the lessons I've learned since mid-2013 when I began my GA position through today, New Years Eve. More to come later!

1. Check before you wreck.
• I learned this lesson early before grad school even started. I was doing some additional research on the school I just accepted a job offer from and found that it had recently been ranked as one of the unsafest schools in the nation, specifically due to an unfortunate student death a number of years earlier. I screenshotted the school's ranking and then tweeted it out to my followers with some stupid caption like "Uh oh". In short order my then-future colleague texted me saying he had seen my tweet and proceeded to give me a quick lesson via text on appropriate conduct with social media in regards to posts discussing where you work. Even though my tweet wasn't directly related to my particular functional area at the university it still concerned my university and as a new employee I had become a spokesperson for the university. I carry this lesson with me everyday as I am very active on social media and consider what others may think of me based off what I share/tweet/post and whether or not I really want something on social media representing who I am. I wouldn't want my activity on social media to serve as the only representation of myself because it can be so one-sided; so do the right thing and consider how your activity will make you appear before posting. After all, future employees may do research on you and you don't want them to see something that can hurt your chances to be hired.  
2. Patience, patience, and more patience. 
• One of my biggest mistakes as a young student of higher education was believing that things get done on the fly. I couldn't have been more wrong! While programming you dream up may seem like the prefect solution to a problem facing your students. or the university, there's so much work that needs to be done before making a dream program into a reality, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing! In my small sample of experience I've seen that perhaps more preparation and research into programming results may actually better the idea you have. I didn't really understand this until recently so I instead learned through facing adversity in programming, especially when I witnessed other programs that did receive substantial support "miss the mark". I suggest a class in research at the higher ed level since after taking one this past semester I feel much more inclined to navigate through the hurdles in pursuit of making my program ideas a success.
3. Don't be a lenient supervisor. 
• I made this mistake with my staff of eight resident assistants (RAs) in my first year as a GA and I'll never make it again. I think there was a short period of time that I considered being a friend to be more important than a supervisor. Likewise, I often sided with my RAs instead of siding with the larger housing office which, while inspiring a sense of closeness with my staff, only served to sever my relationships with my supervisors. Quite simply, be yourself but be a leader first, adviser second, friend third or fourth. Friendships will be stronger with certain people under you than others but in no way is this an excuse to try and be someone's friend versus being their supervisor. From experience, I've worked with some RAs who wanted a friend and other students who wanted a strict supervisor. It's hard to balance the two, believe me. I made the mistake of placing more emphasis on being a friend and that alone didn't help better my experience with housing. You don't have to be a jerk! No, not at all, but you have to be strict. Students can be your friends but as their supervisor, they should respect you first. 

These are only a couple lessons I learned as a graduate student thus far and I have plenty more to share. Still, I think these are ones I wished I learned much earlier in my time as a GA. Had I learned those lessons sooner I may have had a better GA experience, but who knows? What matters now is that I made mistakes and learned from them. Similarly, I'm glad to have made those mistakes in the past versus now as I'm in the hunt for my first real SA job. As mentioned earlier, I carry these lessons with me everyday and have personally seen my own growth as an aspiring SA professional. I hope this helps! Have a Happy New Year!