by Bryan Koval | Jul 22, 2010 | Career Skills, Doctoral Study
Bryan Koval recently transitioned to a new position at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Transition is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. In the past 3 weeks, I have resigned from an old job, started a new job, moved from rural central Pennsylvania to the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and begun living apart from my partner (with whom I have been living for the past 7 years). It has been a very up-and-down few weeks. The excitement of new opportunities at Carnegie Mellon University and in Pittsburgh has been tempered with the anxiety that goes along with opening up a new chapter in my career and personal life.
In a roundabout way, thinking about my current transition has helped me to reflect on our students and the important transitions that they experience while living matriculating through higher education. In many ways the business of higher education is all about transition. Each semester sees new students arriving on campus while others depart. During their time with us students choose majors, study abroad, take on leadership opportunities and learn more about who it is that they are, and who they hope to become. We are constantly surrounded by transition.
As you think about your role in higher education, how do you see yourself being a resource to your residents as they experience the many transitions that are a part of the college experience? Schlossberg (1995) defines transition as “any event, or non-event, that results in changed relationships, routines, assumptions, and roles.” By that definition, transitions are happening all of the time! Schlossberg identified four major sets of factors that influence how well a person can cope with transition (Evans, Forney, & Guido-DeBrito, 1998). Let’s identify those factors, and reflect on how we can help our students to manage transition effectively.
Situation: Important factors include the timing of the transition, the duration of the transition, and previous experiences with similar transitions. During a major change, individuals will also be dealing with concurrent stresses and questions about whether or not they feel in control during the transitions. Working closely with students on campus, we may have some real insight that our students would benefit from. We also function within the situation . . . but as someone on the periphery of the situation we may have some unique perspective on the situation.
Self: During transition, we think about who we are in terms of demographic characteristics (socioeconomic status, gender, etc.) and psychological resources. How has our background prepared us to manage this transition? As higher education professionals, we can play a role in helping students to know more about who they are through programming, conversation, and our relationships with each other.
Support: To manage a transition, individuals need to feel a sense of support. A supportive community is one of my favorite aspects of the work I do with students in residence halls and apartments. What can we do as higher education professionals to make sure that everyone in our community feels that they will receive affirmation, assistance, and honest feedback when they need it?
Strategies: To manage transition, you need a plan in order to proceed. When we talk to our students about their transitions (or when they come to use for mentoring and guidance), how can we help them to move forward in productive ways, while leaving it up to the student to decide how best to move forward?
As I come to the end of this blog post, it dawns on me that I have described Schlossberg’s theory meerly as advice for helping students. In reality, this would be a great theory to review if you supervise new staff members or are staying connected with individuals who are leaving your organization and moving on to new positions elsewhere. Best of luck as you transition for Fall 2010, with whichever events (or non-events) come along with that!
References:
Evans, N. J., Forney, D. S., & Guido-DiBrito, F. (1998). Schlossberg’s transition thoery. In Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 107-122). San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Schlossberg, N.K., Waters, E.B., & Goodman, J. (1995). Counseling adults in transition (2nd ed.). New York: Springer.
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by Bryan Koval | May 13, 2010 | Doctoral Study, life purpose
An unexpected consequence of being a doctoral student and working in higher education is trying to help my parents to wrap their heads around what I am doing with my life. When my father introduces me to someone for the first time, its not that unusual for him to refer to me as “the perpetual student.” My mom thinks I am the”head RA.” While I have nothing against Van Wilder, I know that I have my life more in order than my parents believe.
Maybe its a Millennial thing (I’m right on the cusp between being a Gen X-er and a Millennial), but for the longest time it really important to me that my parents are interested in what I am doing and I want to know that they are proud of me. Prior to working in higher education I was a science teacher, and this was basically the ideal situation for having career discussions with my parents. My dad is a retired teacher and my mom is a school secretary. We could talk about lesson plans, the union contract, continuing education credits, and a wide range of other topics for which we were all on the same wavelength. My mom could easily tell her friends “my son is a science teacher” with absolute conviction. Now that I am a student affairs professional, that’s a little more ambiguous.
Forging ahead with a career in higher education has resulted in me re-evaluating my relationship with my parents, as well as looking at how much of my identity is tied up in my career and academic goals. My parents and I have a good relationship, but I have learned that outside of making sure that they know I have a roof over my head and plenty of food on the table, I don’t need to have their approval or support when it comes to work. I’ve made connections with people who can play that role when my folks are not able to.
This whole discussion about my parents helps to put my career in perspective, though. I constantly struggle with work/life/school balance, and knowing that there are people in my life who are more interested in parts of my life that have nothing to do with work and school is really refreshing. My parents don’t care about quantitative research methods. They just care about me, and that is good enough.
Bryan Koval
Bryan Koval holds two degrees from the Pennsylvania State University (B.S. Secondary Education 03, M. Ed. Higher Education 08). He has worked in Residence Life at Penn State for 5 years, and has made meaningful contributions to projects related to living and learning communities, cocurricular learning outcomes, and resident assistant training in the department.
Prior to working in higher education, Bryan taught 7th grade science in Harford County,Maryland. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education administration from the
George Washington University. Bryan writes about his experience as a working professional and full-time graduate student.
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by Bryan Koval | May 4, 2010 | Doctoral Study
As the semester is winding down, I am faced with the task of closing the residence halls (my day job) while writing 25 pages for two different final assignments for my doctoral classes. I’m also in the midst of some job searching, want to go to a concert in Pittsburgh this week, and way too preoccupied with play-off hockey games (let’s go Pens!) and fantasy baseball. Sounds familiar to just about anyone working in higher education, right?
I’m a little stressed out, but my current juggling act illustrates the importance of time management and organization if you are going to be a doctoral student from a distance. I felt that I would be easily able to balance all of my responsibilities, but I forgot to take one major factor into account: I am a procrastinator. I get some sick thrill out of pulling a project together at the last minute, but this approach is doomed to failure in the context of grad school and full-time employment. This semester I have decided that in order for me to maintain some balance in life and conquer procrastination, I would need to make some changes.
One of the easiest, and most effective, tools for conquering procrastination that I have utilized is group accountability. A number of people in my cohort have formed a reading group, so we split up readings for class, outline them, and then discuss them. When I know that my procrastination will impact other people, I work ahead and get things done well before deadlines. Our group has taken this same approach for reviewing some of our papers and assignments. Basically, I’m piggybacking on positive study habits of other people. It’s timeliness by osmosis.
I have also become more and more dependent on technology as a way to keep myself on track. I had never been a to-do list maker, but I am now. I use the to-do list feature in Mail (the email app I use on my Mac) for work, life, and academic action items. I try to follow an inbox-zero philosophy so that I am on-top of communication that comes through my email. Our reading group also uses a Google Group to keep our materials organized and as a communication hub. Nothing terribly Earth-shattering here . . . but these have been important changes that have paid off for me in a huge way.
Perhaps the most important strategy for staying on-task is doing academic work that is rewarding, motivating, and interesting. Fortunately this has been the rule, rather than the exception, with my doctoral program thus far. Despite my propensity for procrastination, I am interested in my work and want to do well. At the end of the day, that keeps me going.
Bryan Koval
Bryan Koval holds two degrees from the Pennsylvania State University (B.S. Secondary Education 03, M.Ed. Higher Education 08). He has worked in Residence Life at Penn State for 5 years, and has made meaningful contributions to projects related to living and learning communities, cocurricular learning outcomes, and resident assistant training in the department.
Prior to working in higher education, Bryan taught 7th grade science in Harford County, Maryland. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education administration from the George Washington University. Bryan writes about his experience as a working professional and full-time graduate student for higheredcareercoach.com.
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by Bryan Koval | Apr 10, 2010 | Doctoral Study
If you are considering part-time (or full-time from a distance) doctoral work, you’re going to want some flexibility at work. I’m fortunate to work in a department that has been very supportive as I have started my doctoral work. One of the common themes in my cohort is that we have been able to successfully navigate the balancing act with work and school, and this is really essential because of the unique arrangement of a primarily distance-education program.
If you are at a place in your career where you are essentially your own boss, negotiating for flexibility in the workplace may be fairly simple to achieve. If you are an entry-level professional or a mid-level manager, it may take a little bit of work. Here are suggestions that I believe have helped me to find this balance.
- Include your supervisor in the graduate school application process. During my 1x1s with my direct supervisor, we periodically talked about my academic goals and the things that I was working on. My supervisor knew where I was applying and basic information about timelines. As the process moved along, I think my supervisor felt a sense of being invested in what was happening, and became another source of insight and support.
- Include your graduate work as a formal part of your staff review and development plan, if such a thing exists at your institution. Each year I include my academic work as some of my goals for the upcoming year. Time spent on coursework is included in my professional development hours. By having this formally in place, it allows for a certain level of transparency between myself and the institution. It demonstrates to the department that I am making progress.
- Get creative with resources at your institution. My best personal attempt at this is related to getting time out of the office for class. In Student Affairs at Penn State, we are allowed out of the office for approximately 4 hours per week if we are taking a class, and this is time that we do not have to make-up. Since I don’t attend a weekly class on our campus, I have negotiated with my supervisor to allow me to “bank” this time each week, and apply it to the Thursday and Friday of my monthly weekend in Virginia for class. It is a huge relief to not have to take vacation time each month for class. Find other similar policies at your institution and see if you can make them work for you.
- When you are at work, be at work! I’m really committed to maintaining an exemplary level of performance at my job. I would not be OK with my colleagues or supervisors feeling that I am slouching off at work since I am so focused on my academics (we’ve all had those people on our teams, and it’s not fun). Work comes first from 9 to 5 (and sometimes before and after that). I’m not going to say that I never read or work on papers at work, but those tasks never take priority over my job responsibilities.
It’s not perfect. I’m still working through what it means to balance work and school, and I am sure it will change a lot when I get started on my dissertation.
Next time: squeezing every spare minute out of the day!
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by Bryan Koval | Apr 5, 2010 | Doctoral Study
In my previous posts, I have written a great deal about the admissions processes that I navigated on my way to pursuing a doctoral degree. I’m going to shift gears and begin a new series about the specifics of the program in which I chose to enroll and my experience as a full-time doctoral student and full-time working professional. It is a unique program, and it is my hope that my experience will be of interest to the readers of www.higheredcareercoach.com. Please do not mistake this as a sales pitch for my particular institution or type of program . . . but I hope that it illustrates how I have attempted to balance doctoral studies with my professional career and family life.
I’m currently a first-year doctoral student in the Higher Education Administration Ed.D. program at the George Washington University. While GWU offers a traditional doctoral program experience at their Foggy Bottom campus in the District of Columbia, I attend classes at the Virginia Campus near Dulles Airport. I have chosen the cohort program model that GWU offers. In this program, a number of students are admitted each fall. This cohort of students takes all of their courses together for the first two and a half years of the program, seven credits each semester during the fall, spring and summer.
Courses for cohort students at the Virginia Campus are taught by the same faculty members who teach at Foggy Bottom, and course content and program requirements are the same, although they are adjusted a bit to accommodate for the unique needs of cohort students. All members of the cohort program are working in higher education, and most of us do not live in the D.C. area.
Here are the major factors that resulted in my enrollment in the GW cohort program, instead of a more traditional program at another institution.
- The ability to accrue meaningful professional experience while making progress towards my doctorate. As an entry-level professional in student affairs, I was concerned about being “overqualified” with a doctorate and limited professional experience.
- The idea of being in a cohort was really appealing to me. I knocked out my masters degree part-time while working full-time, so I never had the experience of being in a cohort and making strong connections with classmates. I felt like I was missing out on that during my masters program.
- GWU just seemed like a good fit for me. It’s not the most highly ranked program in the world, but everyone treated me well throughout the admissions process. They were really transparent about the strengths and areas for growth with their program. I really felt like they wanted me there, and like I would have support to do good work.
- They offered me some financial support (not full tuition or anything like that), which was nice.
Some of my concerns about the program included:
- Balancing 7-credits each semester with my 50-60 hours per week at work.
- Travel. One weekend a month while working in a position that requires me to be on-call is quite a commitment, while also adding to the costs of the program.
- Quality. GWU says the quality of the educational experience is just as good for cohort students as it is for traditional students. Would this be true?
In the end, I thought the pluses outweighed the potential negatives. To this point, I have been thrilled to be a George Washington Colonial, and I have found the delicate balancing act of work and school manageable. Next time, I’ll write about how I’ve negotiated things at work and home to make all of this possible.
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