Trio Student Support Services Advisor, Kirsten
Kirsten Collins, University of Minnesota Trio Advisor, Involved in social justice and advocate of minority rights. Trio is a set of federally funded college opportunity programs that support students from disadvantaged and under represented backgrounds in their pursuit of a college degree. Trio programs provide academic tutoring, personal counseling, mentoring and financial guidance.
Seeing my mother in school inspired me
I grew up all over the place but I was in a
single parent home; it was multigenerational. I lived with my grandparents and
my mom who were working towards going to college. But while we, my siblings and
I, were in high school my mother was working here at the University of
Minnesota in its facilities. Nobody in my family went to college, so I had
never really thought about college until I seen my mom studying at the kitchen
table and talking about how smart she was. I only applied to one school and it
was kind of a fluke, so I just applied here at the University of Minnesota. I
was accepted to the University of Minnesota through the Trio program and I was
a Trio student. Therefore, I think my mom initially inspired me to go to
school. She is a kind and giving person but at the same time she is socially
responsible.
Well there are many reasons that my job is important to me
Probably one of the biggest
reasons that my job is important to me would be that traditionally in our
society, the students we work with in Trio are usually low income first
generation college students, the students may be preliterate, or even may have
not had formal schooling in the past. In our Society these are people generally
don’t have access to power in the same way as the middle class people do with
an acceptable education. This is also a group of people that I culturally value
and respect the morals that they bring in with them. I believe that if there is
something that I can do to facilitate and help them, I will try my best to do
so. I feel that education is a route to power in our society and civic
engagement. Therefore, it is important to me to be part of the process of
guiding students who are less fortunate and helping them be able to gain and
have that power in society.
Sometimes my career can be too much to maintain
I work
in a nonprofit community and I think in the nonprofit sector self-care is often abandoned. And when we don’t have time to take care of ourselves or our personal lives, work becomes too much to that deal with more traditional students. Because they’re working 8:30 to 4:30 maintain. We’re very different in trio than for example the advisor’s upstairs younger population works right. Myself and the rest of the trio advisors have and they leave the work environment, while we’re sending emails and working during the day and night. Because that’s kind of how our population, our for the cause. But we have to make time to take care of ourselves too. So to have more flexibility. I think sometimes in a non-profit occupation self-care is sometimes looked down upon, because we are supposed to be there is very “now,” it has to be “now,” or we have to deal with it “now” that we that we can be the best advocates that we can be. Though sometimes we forget about that because there will be so much going on with the students that take on a lot.
The end of Trio would be detrimental
I think it would be pretty devastating, because all their students are awesome and when we start to read over their applications to the University, we get really excited about them before the students even come here. When I think about it, I have a lot to offer these kids and to think that if Trio hadn’t been around when I was a preparing for college, I would have just gone to upholstery school, but then the school closed. Then I just went to college but to think that I may not be where I am without Trio because I think we really serve a purpose in this society. We have veterans upward bound so we work with veterans, we work with displaced adults, so adults that are homeless, and English language learners and there is a lot of support that Trio provides so that would make me really sad that there is potential that Trio will be gone. If that happens people may not have the opportunity to be engaged citizens and cast their vote and run for office and make all these differences in our community that I want to see made by this group of people. But hopefully we will be alright.
The students and advisors that make up the trio culture are distinct
I would definitely say so. We are more like a family vibe down in Trio. I have worked there for 9 years now and we have known most of the people in Trio for years. For example, Fran, the older woman who works at a front desk is cool, and she is like your grandma. When you come in, she would say ‘eat this terrible food’ and she also puts little snowman decorations up and so it's definitely a family vibe in the office and I think that's why I like it so much. For example, if someone's late for a meeting we’ll yell down the hallway just like you’re calling someone for dinner or whatever. So, for the rest of the University, I would say we have more of a working class vibe in our office and the other programs have more of like a middle upper class way of functioning. So I don't think we are unprofessional really, but I just think that we all come from more oral cultures where you get you such as language or your knowledge from talking to people in relationships. We’re very relationship based. I think the culture of the university was founded for upper class white guys. So that's the culture that's still here and it's weird to see that even though you have all of these great minds afro studies, Chicano studies, and American studies but then you still have this underlying very racist classes culture. Also not saying middle class culture is all racist classes, but you also have this middle class not as warm not as relationship based culture.
Advice for an individual’s searching for their calling
I think it's different for everybody. Some of my students say “I’m not really that interested in pharmacy, but my family wants me to be a pharmacist or my family is low income, and it's my responsibility.” People have different reasons for doing things, whether they’re intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated. So I think it's different for everyone. It's based on your values and your morals. For me, I don't know. My mom wanted me to either be a welder because she said there's always work for women who are welders even though it's an awful job or a waitress because she said “you'll always have cash.” So for me, I didn't have a lot of family pressure to be a doctor or a pharmacist or something. I could just follow my heart because whatever I did was going to be. I mean welding you make good money but it's a terrible working conditions. So whatever I did was going to be fine with her as long as I was happy. That was kind of my path. But if I had family that was depending on me to help pay bills, it might be a different thing. So I think you just have to think about what your values are and what's driving you. Also try and balance that with being happy yourself because, I do believe that students can have a balance even if they're family is pressuring them to be a pharmacist or other fields. You spend a quarter of your life at work, so you don't want to be miserable. There's this funny saying that says “Find something you love and just do it on nights and weekends when you're not too tired” and it's like no. But, I don't know. Everybody’s got different responsibilities so I think it depends on what yours are.
It is great to see how she returns to help work with the same organization that helped her become successful!
ReplyDeleteI like it because she goes back and helps the organization that helps her and how her mother inspires her to always go on and do better.
ReplyDeleteWe think that the link to Trio and the pictures were very helpful. They really brought a lot to your paper!
ReplyDeleteCarley and Morgan