Reflection on going to a public university, growing-up issues, and moving past graduation
By Chloe Woodward UA’24 and Jim Stellar
Chloe was a student in my senior seminar, How the Brain Decides. It was there that we decided to write this blog. The general object of the blog is to take the neuroscience-based thinking from that course and apply it to her reflections on college as a way of exploring cognitive-emotional integration – how heart and mind work together to lead to growth and professional development. We will do that here and in future blogs with the reflection on college that comes with her graduation this past spring, and that may involve more about the brain.
A large part of why I chose to study at UAlbany is due to my finances. Growing up, I heard about people getting into deep financial debt because of school loans and knew that I wanted to avoid that at any cost. Another key component of why I focused so much on the cost of school was because of my family’s finances. My mother works as a bartender, which isn’t always the most stable job. Depending on the crowd and the time of year, she may bring home lots of money one night and thirty dollars the next night. Another main component is seeing my mom go into credit card debt. Although it’s not the same as student loans, I saw the stress that it brought her for years, and over time I decided that I didn’t want to experience that if I could help it. As you can imagine, my family does not have the financial flexibility to help pay off loans for anyone, but because I chose to go to a state school, my loans are manageable, and I should be able to pay them off within the next few years. Studying at a college with high tuition is manageable if you’re studying for a high-paying career; however, when considering these options at 18, I wasn’t sure what career path I would be on ten years down the line, and even after declaring my major, I was unsure of where I fit into the field of psychology.
This lower-cost is a fundamental property of your now former university. I think it opens up tremendous potential among the students not only for their growth (which is a great mission), but also for our work as a faculty with the students having striving minds for self-improvement. That actually helps faculty even in scholarship. As a clear example, just look at what we are doing right now. But let’s keep going with your development. What happened as you approached graduation?
As I approached graduation, I knew that I wanted to get into the field and get hands-on experience to see what area would fit best for me long-term. I applied to several local shelters, some geared towards mental health and some towards substance abuse. During this time, I did a few interviews and heard back from one shelter that specializes in domestic violence. The mission of this shelter really spoke to me, as someone who witnessed domestic violence as a child and saw firsthand the effects it can have on an individual. Coming into the shelter, I was fixated on the domestic violence aspect, but as the weeks have gone by, I’ve observed that it runs far deeper than that in many cases. Many times, mental health, homelessness, and substance abuse become intertwined, and it becomes a complex puzzle to understand so that we can provide the best support and resources for that individual. As you can imagine, some days are very emotionally draining, but many people are able to find the strength to overcome their circumstances, and it’s hard not to be in awe of someone who is capable of that.
Great. And to go back to my earlier point, students who have chosen to attend UAlbany are often very interested in upward social mobility as well as finding what they want to do. I think that fits in with a good plan for a university – how to build strong development from a combination of academic and experiential learning, even if that work-place learning experience comes after college. So, now that you have graduated and started your job, what has happened to the reflections you gave above?
After graduating and starting my job in the shelter, I’ve had the chance to reflect on the things I talked about above. Post-graduation, I felt like I wanted to enter a master’s program in mental health counseling; however, after working, I’ve been exposed to other avenues. An individual at my job is involved in the social work field, which is something I had never really considered. Counseling is definitely still an option I want to explore, but I feel that social work may be a good fit for me as well. While both are great options, I feel that the person-to-person aspect of social work appeals to me. I always focused on the organizations in social work that are broken, partly because of my own experiences with them; however, I’ve come to recognize that there are so many organizations in the field that do amazing work and help people. Something that my undergraduate experience heavily influenced is the process of choosing what school I want to go to for my masters, and as I stated previously, finances were a large part of my decision-making in college, which is something that hasn’t changed. I’m planning to take some time to decide on what program suits me best and to get more experience in my current job. Although I haven’t worked at the shelter for very long, I feel that it’s been really rewarding to establish a sense of trust with clients and to be able to support them when they need it. I also have a co-worker who has been similar to a mentor, and she has been teaching me about everything that goes into my job role.
You are growing and that is great. Now let’s go back to your college years. Aside from our course together that we mentioned in the opening, what is your reflection upon the UAlbany experience in general that shaped your current thinking?
Looking back on my college years, I sometimes find myself having mixed feelings. I was going through various personal struggles that led to me not being very involved on campus, whether with clubs or my professors. At the same time, I had the opportunity to learn about something that truly interests me and form connections that will always be important to me. When it comes to college, the academics are no doubt a huge component, but beyond that, I feel that it really helped me learn how to be self-sufficient. My hope is that I can be fully involved in the masters program I choose to enroll in, so I don’t have regrets about my involvement and the way I navigated it.
This mixture of academic learning and self-growth is so common when the student or young alumni get involved with experiential education and particularly work-place based internships or first jobs. The key to that growth may be reflection and that may require a college mentor or a work-place mentor. We plan to return to that idea with another blog, probably based on our last academic course together, to examine how that reflection on both of these experiences work in the brain and is therefore brain natural. Incidentally, that idea argues for more attention to this experiential-mentoring process in and out of college, especially if higher education wants to claim it is really good for a student’s personal and professional development.
