1. What were your motives for helping this person?
The story that comes to mind is of a math student that came to me to help her determine what she wanted to do with her degree. She liked math, and had recently realized that you could do tons of things with a math degree and felt overwhelmed. I was motivated to help her because a) it is literally my job and b) because I felt like she was "zooming out" too much on the situation which caused her to feel paralyzed and like she didn't know where to start.
2. Did you benefit from this relationship in any way? How?
Though this relationship I am able to learn along with her about different fields, industries, and nuances that I might not have known before. I know some general things about subjects like data science, but by her reporting back to me what she learns I am more prepared to help others. In addition, I get satisfaction when I can help someone channel their nervous energy into action steps so that they can still move forward.
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?
In this helping relationship, I viewed myself as a guide. I helped to suggest different ways for her to work through her perceived problems so that she no longer felt stuck or overwhelmed. I then also helped to hold her accountable and give feedback at every stage of the process. Looking back, I think I could have let her completely decide next steps instead of suggesting options. When a student presents me with a problem/concern I tend to say something like, "Well we could do a, b, or c to tackle that." instead of letting them come up with a plan.
4. Was there anything that this person did, said, or believed that you did not agree with? How did you react?
Nothing really comes to mind. This isn't so much a "didn't agree with" thing, but after we had worked through a couple different topics she said she was still unclear on some things related to networking and that sort of threw me off because we had gone over it previously. In the moment I said that we could schedule another appointment to talk through any lasting questions that she had.
5. Did you learn anything from this relationship?
From this relationship I truly learned the meaning of the old SA adage that "you can't want it more than they do." With a lot of career exploration students they don't really feel engaged in the process. However this student wanted to complete activities and make progress and talk through every step. It was a refreshing change of pace.