Saturday, April 23, 2011

Detours (Part 1)

We are in the middle of fall registration for freshmen at work, and the week has flown by. Right now during walk-in advising, we see students back-to-back, and the line goes out of the office.

Yesterday I saw an unhappy student. She is not doing well in her classes this semester. She plans to withdraw from the semester and change her major to "undecided". I could tell that these decisions added stress to her life instead of relieving it. With a line of students waiting to be seen, I did not have a chance to dive into this with her any deeper that some prescriptive advising about policies and procedures.

I wished there was more I could do, so I threw out a comment about "Sometimes we have to take detours, but we can get back on the road." It got me thinking about all the detours my life has taken, and how some of the best things that have happened in my life were not the things that I had planned. To be continued...

3 comments:

Kat said...

Sara, that is SO TRUE and SO HARD to understand when you are 18-21 years old. Perspective is priceless.

Connie Mercer said...

yes so true.....

Sara said...

Yep, I often think back to 18-year-old-Sara when I am at work to remember what the freshmen are going through.