1. What were your motives for helping this person?
A story that comes to my mind when answering these questions is when I tried to advise one of our nontraditional students on campus. He had met with our office multiple times and felt like he did not "vibe" well with any of the people he had previously met with. His professor advised him to come back to our office and try someone new as he was nearing graduation and did not know what career he wanted to pursue. He expressed feeling hopeless and lost.
2. Did you benefit from this relationship in any way? How?
I benefitted from this relationship because it was able to teach me that it is okay to reach out to other resources on campus to assist students. This relationship also taught me that I have a lot to learn in terms of assisting nontraditional students which is also why I wanted to take this course.
3. What was your role in the helping relationship? In what way do you think you helped this person? Looking back, is there anything that you might have done differently?
My role in the helping relationship was to teach the student about resources that could assist him with finding a career that he may enjoy. I asked him open ended questions to try to learn more about his story and what he is interested in. I believe that I helped him realize that there are a lot of options that he could pursue even though he felt like his age was a barrier. I also helped by referring him to our counseling services on campus due to some of his remarks regarding mental health concerns. Looking back, I believe that I would have approached this student a little differently. Instead of asking him so many questions, I would have tried to embrace the silence a little more so that he may have opened up a little more.
4. Was there anything that this person did, said, or believed that you did not agree with? How did you react?
This student insisted that there was no hope for him finding a job or even starting a career due to being in his mid-late forties. I reacted to this persistent comments by listening and letting him get the emotions out. I tried to talk to him calmly about how people pivot careers throughout their lives and that age does not have to hold him back. Whenever I would ask him questions, he would respond with "I don't know" or "I've never thought about it." He seemed very depressed and unmotivated which motivated me to refer him to counseling services.
5. Did you learn anything from this relationship?
This relationship taught me that I need to learn the skills to better handle consistent responses to open ended questions that are "I don't know" or "I've never thought about it." I need to learn how to rephrase questions to be able to better help students. After some conversations with my supervisor, I learned that I may not be able to help everyone but that referring the student to counseling was the right thing to do until he is ready to focus on career goals.