Listen

I've always been aware that there's my job as it is detailed in the description and the job as it functions. I help students learn about a particular field, but I am also, for lack of a better term, a counselor.

This comes to mind as I've had to help minimize and negotiate some student drama in recent weeks. The specifics aren't important--or all that interesting, really. It's the usual interpersonal conflicts that flare up when a group of students are working toward a common goal but have different ideas of how to achieve it and how much effort is required. Some of it goes beyond work and into the realm of personality clashes and, in the most inflammatory instances, broken romantic relationships. The tension is magnified even more within the smaller circle of a small college setting.

Fortunately I'm not on my own in trying to navigate the choppy emotional waters of 18 to 22-year-olds, although I tend to be the calmer voice of reason. I don't think it's something I anticipated having to do when I originally took the job, but boy am I glad to have a psychology degree. It's given me some valuable tools when listening to students blowing off steam or expressing uncertainty about what to do.

I can't say if I'm any good at listening and giving advice to these students. (It's certainly draining enough.) Sometimes there's a definite sense that what I say is going in one ear and out the other, if the words even get in the ear in the first place. It may not be what I signed on for, but I realize that ultimately I'm there to help these students find their course, whether it's in my academic area or elsewhere. Here's hoping I'm doing right by them.