Kristen BixbyThe other day, I was at the gym talking to a woman about my career and when I said out loud, “I love working with teenagers!” several people turned around and gave me funny looks. One even said, “No one loves teenagers!” in a teasing tone. While I suppose I may be in the minority, I really do love working with teens. Over the past sixteen years, I have devoted my education and career to them.
But it got me thinking about my work with Campus Bound and why we do what we do. The bottom line is that we enjoy helping people. At Campus Bound, we become college counselors and essay specialists because we can concentrate on one area, share our knowledge with parents and teens, and ease anxiety and stress caused by the college admissions process. My favorite part is when parents say, typically after the very first meeting, “I feel like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders!” That is exactly why we do this.
In reflecting on 2017, I don’t immediately think of all the policy changes and admissions trends that inundated our profession. While that is a priority at Campus Bound, and a good deal of what we spend our time on, what matters to me most are the connections I’ve made. My favorite part about working for Campus Bound is the wealth of experience among our staff. I know that any time I am faced with a question that is new to me (after 16 years, it still happens), I can pose it to my colleagues and receive reliable responses. My colleagues at Campus Bound are the real deal. Each person has many, many years of experience under his/her belt, and in a world where there aren’t always black and white answers (the world of college admissions), it’s important to me to know I can depend on my colleagues.
But the personal connections I made with my students and families are far and away the most rewarding. I have students from 16 years ago with whom I still keep in touch, many of whom are now establishing impressive careers, getting married and/or starting families. This year, I worked with a student who, from the day I met her, had her sights on one particular school. Of course, she researched and applied to other schools as well, but we focused our efforts on her “dream school,” and I’m not sure who cried more when she got in: me or her.
My students are the real reason I do this job. I visit colleges, read books and articles, and attend conferences, all for them. I thought this blog was going to be about the various admission trends and policy changes that occurred in 2017, but that’s for us to worry about. You (students and families) need only know that we truly love what we do and will always work hard for YOU.