Growing up the child of two educators instilled in me a thirst for lifelong learning, though I struggled with the question of what I "wanted to be when I grew up" for quite some time. At a very early age, my love of animals drove me to study them and dream of vet school one day, but as I got into my later teen years, I lost confidence in my math and chemistry abilities to pursue that career path. This change left me a bit lost as I entered college, so I became one of those aimless students who tried major after major desperately seeking to find my passion. By my graduation in 2003 I had attended three different schools and had a total of eight majors - one for only about two and a half hours! I eventually graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts - English with my focus on British Literature and the Literature of Former British Colonies. My concentration was inspired by a mentor faculty member who had a class listed in the course catalog as "World Literature - The Empire Writes Back." While this major was fascinating to me, it didn't really leave me with a clear career path, which amazingly didn't really occur to me while I was in school. I never truly thought about the answer to the question, "What will I do with this when I leave school?" My dad had always told me what mattered was the fact that one completes a degree, not what the degree is. But by the time I graduated, the economic climate had shifted to having a degree in "something" not just having a degree.
After graduation I taught 8th and 11th grade English/Language Arts but I learned quickly that teaching in K-12 was never going to be a lasting career for me. I enjoyed the actual teaching portion, but all the classroom behavior issues and lack of parental involvement difficulties frustrated me beyond belief. I was burned out on teaching in less than two years. I changed to industry positions and held a couple of customer service and bookkeeping positions over the next six years, still wandering a bit aimlessly in finding my purpose. The thing that bothered me the most about my work was that I didn't feel like I was a part of something bigger - I wanted to make a difference, not just punch a clock.
In 2009 I returned to Auburn University to pursue a master's degree in Higher Education Administration. In the beginning I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do, but aspiring to a position where I could give back to my alma mater gave me renewed purpose. Then after thinking about positions at Auburn and people I knew when I was in undergrad, I figured it out. This time when people would ask, "well what do you do with that?" I had an answer - Academic Advising. As an undergraduate I had an advisor who supported my search for my passion. She always made me feel like she knew me and cared about my success, even though she had probably hundreds of students to advise as a liberal arts and undeclared advisor. However, she never really helped me focus on the long term career options and where I could go with my major. I wanted to do that for other students.
I received my M.Ed. in May of 2011 and have been working at Auburn University since then. In August of 2015 I once again re-enrolled at Auburn to pursue a Ph.D. in Adult Education in order to have the background needed to progress in my advising career and to round out my skill set to be better able to help my students. It took a few years to finally get into that dream job position of Academic Advisor, but in August of 2016 I became the advisor for Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. Then in March of 2018 I was able to move up the career ladder to an Academic Advisor II position in the Biosystems Engineering Department, and was promoted to the top of the job family, Advisor III in 2019. I love it, and feel like I am making a difference in the world by helping students pursue their dreams, achieve success in their goals, and prepare productive citizens and Auburn Family members for the future.
