Whoops! I didn't mean to go a week without posting...I guess that's just how fast my time here is going, yikes!
This week has actually been pretty slow in terms of things to do at work, mainly because we're ahead of the game and our supervisor is gone. But, I'm not complaining! I have started to bond a little bit more with the SAs which makes me happy, but I only interact with a few of them on a regular basis because of how their schedules work out. I was however invited to dinner with a few of them last night at one of the dining halls, so that was fun! I'm hoping I can get to know them better over the next couple weeks.
I did have 2 instances this week where I really let myself down. 2 of the things I pride myself on are responsibility and time management. Tuesday night there was a SA meeting that I didn't really need to be at because it's outside of my normal hours and I don't have much to add, but I had planned on going and let people know I was going to be there. The meeting was supposed to be at 9:30pm, but cue me looking at my phone at 10:00 realizing I missed it, and completely forgot about it. I was embarrassed and felt terrible about it, but their supervisor didn't care at all. I was more upset I let myself down and made a mistake like that. Unfortunately something similar happened yesterday. I was supposed to be a part of a couple interviews for open positions yesterday and today. Somehow yesterday I got the times mixed up and missed the interview yesterday. I realized what I had done and immediately sent an e-mail to the coordinator and apologized. I never heard back from her, but this one I truly felt horrible about, especially since it affected other people in the central office. It was a group interview, so I know it was fine I wasn't there, but I was extremely upset with myself yesterday about this. I know mistakes happen, but as I said I pride myself on time management and responsibility, this really got me down. I've made some changed to my calendar and have tried to make sure this won't happen again, but the damage is done. Hopefully people aren't too upset.
That was the negative, but I did have a lot of positive this week. Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a recognition banquet/event for the entire Student Affairs division. The fact that such an event exists is itself incredible. I didn't know very many people at the event, and didn't meet anyone knew, and I almost left early because of that. But, I decided to stay and here about some of the award recipients. The staff and students who were all recognized all sounded like they had done some really great things. Employees who had were celebrating 10, 15, 20, etc year anniversaries were also recognized, which I thought was really nice. I'm not sure some of the people in attendance knew how lucky they were to be at an institution that publicly recognizes its employees for their service and outstanding achievements, based on the amount of side conversations going on, but it really is awesome. I'm a huge believer in the power of recognition as a motivational tool, so this event was a big deal for me.
Today I participated in application rankings for First Year Residential Experience floors, which are first-year living-learning communities. This was again a great experience, and I really enjoyed reading some of the applications. It was quite apparent where these new students were in terms of maturity based on the content of their answers, which was really interesting to go over. One of the communities I was reviewing applications for was a community-service themed community. Many of the applications made these over-the-top grandiose statements and had some incredibly in-depth community service experiences. This actually got a little tiring after a while, until I came to one application. This student didn't have near the amount of experiences as some of the other applicants, but told this story about she had this one profound experience that kind of changed her life and the way she viewed the world. I rated this application higher than a lot of the others. It just kind of made me step back for a moment and put everything in perspective and realize that while all these other people might have some amazing experiences, this student could be equally great for different reasons. Little things like this get me really excited about this field, and only solidify for me this is the field where I need to be.
After we finished all the applications I sat in on an interview for a candidate who was applying for a Residence Hall Assistant Director position, which here at NYU is an entry level position like the ones I'll be applying for other places next year. I was happy to sit in on this interview for several reasons. For one, if I were asked those questions today, I would have ran out of the building because I don't know that I could have answered them anywhere near well-enough. But, I was also interested to see not only how the candidate answered the questions, but also how the other interviews probed for more detailed answers and what they responded to. After the interview we all met to share our experiences, which I stayed quieter for, because I didn't know as well what they were looking for, but I did add a bit of perspective. Next spring I'll be going through (hopefully) a lot of these type of interviews, so it was a great experience overall.
Ok, that's a long enough blog post. 2 of my friends are in a plane right now on their way here, and I can't wait for them to get here! I'll update again soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment