I really like my job. I haven’t been able to say that in the past two years. I didn’t hate my job or even dislike it, but I didn’t actually like being a researcher who just worked with numbers and databases. That’s cool for some people, but not for me.

I’ve been working here since April. The job came at a tough time in my life, sort of a crossroads with lots of changes in relationships, goals and all that. This job has helped me get through that. I don’t think I’m excellent at what I do. I screwed up royally a few months ago by sending letters to the wrong students. Fulano de tal got a letter addressed to Fulanita. The letters had the same information and it was fixable, but I still felt dumb. Normally, I’m hearing praise. My supervisor and the director of the program both think I’m doing an excellent job, have everything under control, and am doing exactly what they hired me to do.

All summer long, I’ve been meeting and advising the students I’ll get to know better once the school year starts. There are about 100 first year students in the program and about 30 second year students. That’s a lot. I’m used to working with caseloads of about 50 or 60.

The best part, of course has been working with the students. It’s great to work through problems together and help them figure something out. Still, there are things I don’t like. I feel like I’m doing too much telling and not enough asking. That’s not the way I learned or even like to advise or counsel students.

I don’t know why they want to major in the sciences aside from a short paragraph they wrote on their applications. I don’t know too much about their future goals, where they’re coming from, what initially sparked their interests, or what they’re excited and worried about. Instead, I speak to a student on the phone and want to immediately ask, “what’s your student ID number?”

As a student, I still hate identifying myself by a number, but as someone who works with students and has access to their records, I know the easiest way to help them begins with being able to access those records. Having the ID number is the most accurate way to identify the student.

As time goes on, I think I’ll be putting to use the skills I learned at the old job. Many of the students I once counseled have with met their goals and graduated. It felt great to see them walk across the stage at the Raza Graduation. Hearing, “I couldn’t have done this without you” felt even better. I can’t wait to have that sort of impact on people’s lives again.