Greg: Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, Associate Director of Career Education at a major university, Degrees in Psychology and Marriage & Family Therapy

There are numerous opportunities for student employment on college campuses, which can be a convenient and valuable experience while in college.  Little did Greg know, that experience would influence much of his career path through today.  Listen to Greg’s story about why he moved from studying Computer Science to Psychology, how he chose his graduate course of study, and why he is now working with college students during the day and as a therapist at night.  There were a lot of experiences along his path, including working with veterans, children in the foster care system, and as a bereavement counselor that contribute to his work today. Greg will also tell you why you should visit your campus Career Services office and how they can help you take the next step on your path.  Utilize this important campus resource!  

Transcript

Carrie: 0:01

Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with Greg, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and he's also an Associate Director in career education at a major university. He has an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. Greg, thanks so much for joining us today.

Greg: 0:53

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Carrie: 0:55

Absolutely. I'm glad you're here. So can you take us back to your high school days and talk a little bit about what you were thinking regarding your education and career path?

Greg: 1:05

Yeah, absolutely. A lot has changed since then. So when I was in high school, I thought I was gonna go and be a computer programmer.

Carrie: 1:12

Oh really? Wow.

Greg: 1:13

Yeah. I left my high school and went to the school I attended in Southern California. That is where I started as a computer science major. Then it was kind of as I was transitioning to college, and a semester in, a lot of life turbulence kind of happened for me. A lot happened with my family and it really threw me into a place where I looked at my values and said, What, what do I value? Like I think I'm good at this computer thing, but what do I really care about? I found that I just lost all kind of interest in the computer stuff and found myself questioning a lot. Like many students, I think, Oh wait, what do I really wanna do? I went through a couple of different iterations, but, I eventually started pursuing psychology by the end of my first year in college. It was kind of a long direction. I always talked to students about like, yeah, I went from computer science to psychology. It's a pretty big leap. But I'm glad I did.

Carrie: 2:07

It's so interesting too, I found talking with a lot of people that a lot of times people have strengths in certain areas that they don't actually enjoy doing.

Greg: 2:17

Right. Well, and it's funny cuz, I still enjoy computers and I like being tech savvy to some degree, but, what I came to realize too was, is part of the thing I loved about working on computers was helping people fix their computers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the direction I was going in in college was more like developing programs and doing the programming pieces, which I didn't feel like I had maybe the talents and the skills for, in the same way as I did fixing things. I will all just back up and say like, Therapy is not fixing things. Right. Definitely. I wanna be clear, like, what I realized is I liked being along to support people. I actually thought, you know, if I look back on it, I probably would've been someone who taught individuals how to use their computers better. I think that would've been the ideal thing for me to pursue at some point. But life took me another direction and I don't know that you can really make a total career out of it. Maybe you can.

Carrie: 3:08

Well, and that's so important too, to recognize those skills that you have and the things that you enjoy that are outside of the academic context. Right? Just like for you, that connection and that helping people. It's so important for students to think about what are those things you enjoy doing and that you're good at, that you aren't necessarily gonna find in a class. But how can you use those academic pieces with those things? And it sounds like you were really in tune with that.

Greg: 3:34

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, one of the things that occurred for me when I went off to school, they had orientation for college. You know, you have an orientation leader who's a student and I thought they were awesome. They did an awesome job and I thought I should consider doing this. And so going into my second year, that was what I did with part of my summer was I was an orientation leader for students. That really sparked my interest in working with students. Because out of that, I met another orientation leader who said, Hey, you're pretty good at like helping students with the academic pieces. Cause at that time, orientation leaders help students plan for their first quarter of classes and help them enroll in their first quarter of classes at orientation. And this individual, she said to me, Yeah, I think you should consider applying for this student staff position, which was a peer advisor. The peer advisors worked in an academic advising office with the advisors and helped students one on one figure out courses that they were needing to take or if they should consider, you know, adding, dropping some of that. But there was limitations as a peer advisor how much I would do in those conversations. But nonetheless, it got me started in working one on one with students.

Carrie: 4:46

Yeah. There are so many campus opportunities for students to work while they're in school. In higher ed, a lot of us found our path that way, right? Because we started out that way as a student. But there's also a lot of people that start doing that as a student who find other things or other skills they have or other things they like. So those on campus opportunities can be so fantastic, because you're in an environment people want you to learn, right? And they want you to do well, and they are willing to support you and obviously work around your class schedules. So those can be really great environments to test the waters or just to be in a safe space to learn and grow.

Greg: 5:24

Absolutely. I talk to students a good amount about the importance of student employment as a first kind of get started in the workplace. You mentioned this idea of there's so many jobs where you gain skills that you'll use outside the university after you graduate or in internships. Yeah. And I give the example all the time of, you know, our university has positions for student staff that wanna do either graphic design or a media communication. Yeah. And those pieces allow students to get the experience that then they can translate and put on their resume and then apply it to a furthering, like an internship in a company over a summer.

Carrie: 5:56

Absolutely. Yeah. And things just like in operations where obviously that can apply to so many things. You can even communicate to your supervisor, Hey, this is what I'm interested in. It'd be really great if this particular skill that I could work on, or even your supervisor could advise you on that, right? Yeah. There's just a lot of opportunity to do that in a nurturing environment.

Greg: 6:17

Yeah. So, you know, for me, my time as a peer advisor was kind of my internship. I stayed there for three years and had a great time. I even took on another role. So I had two student staff roles in this office. When I was getting ready to graduate, I didn't have it all figured out. I thought, Oh, do I wanna work for a year before I go to grad school? What do I wanna do? And then, the opportunity came up where the office I was in wanted to hire me temporarily. I jumped on the opportunity to work for them temporarily and continue to gain those skills. At the same time, I made the decision to start graduate school. I went to a graduate school where the classes were in the evenings, and so I did it part-time. A regular load would've been three to four classes, I guess. I decided to do two at a time in the evening, which extended my program from two and a half years to four years. But I am glad I started that.

Carrie: 7:14

And can you talk a little bit about how you made the decision to pursue marriage and family therapy? Because Yeah. Obviously there's a lot of options for licensing and master's degrees in psychology and then obviously, you know, Doctoral degrees after that. So can you talk a little bit about the different options that you thought through and why you chose the path that you did?

Greg: 7:35

Yeah, certainly. At the time, I didn't want to, and I still don't want to, uh, currently go for a whole PhD. And so I wasn't, you know, looking at the psychology route. From my understanding of the main options, when I lived in California, Licensed Professional Counselors wasn't as common in California at that time. It became common toward the end of my graduate school time. So the main two options I saw, not wanting to pursue a PhD, were marriage and family counseling and social work. And I didn't know a ton about social work, so I didn't give it tons of research. But what I knew about marriage and family therapy that made me wanna pursue it is it was about the relationships and how much those relationships matter. From my own experience, I knew how much relationships mattered. And so through that, I knew I wanted to do therapy where the emphasis was on the relationships people were involved with and that were impacting them. So that was kind of the direction I took in that sense of, I didn't know a lot about this one. I knew marriage and family therapy was gonna focus on relationships and relationship dynamics. And then social work at the time didn't interest me. The interesting thing is, is now I'm married to a social worker, so I know a lot more about social work now.

Carrie: 8:44

I bet you do.

Greg: 8:45

And it's a wonderful career and I do my best to try to explain to people the differences, between marriage and family therapy, social work, licensed professional counselor, and psychologist. There's a lot of overlap. They're, they're definitely different and there's things that they all do and there's things that they do very differently. But I've met a lot of social workers who do great relational work. You know, that that's an important part of what they see. Same with LPCs, Licensed professional counselors.

Carrie: 9:13

Mm-hmm. Can you talk a little bit about your coursework in graduate school and the things that stuck out to you as being really impactful on you? And then also, I'm assuming you had to do some kind of internship or something at the end of that. So can you talk about all of that and what your experience was like as a graduate student?

Greg: 9:32

Yeah, you're taking me back. I'm having to think about classes. The hard thing about graduate school is even in the field of like therapy, in the field of counseling, there are so many things that they could cover. I really look back and I was thinking about just as you're saying that like, gosh, you know, sometimes I wish they'd covered more of specific techniques or skills or types of therapy that you need to use in different situations. And I think that they did. I think that they really our professors were good in introducing them to us. And maybe at the time I didn't dive into it, you know, if I had taken the time and gone, Oh, I should spend more time learning about that one. What does stand out to me is that my program really emphasized having kind of a theoretical orientation. There's a lot of therapy modalities or theoretical orientations. The program I went to, you know, all the papers you would write, or a large majority at least, were written through the theoretical orientation you were thinking you were gonna use, or you might have a second theoretical orientation that you could consider using. It would really push you to make sure you're considering the client through that orientation and that theory and that kind of helps ground you. Sometimes it can be confusing working with clients. And so having that theoretical orientation of like, Okay, what are we trying to accomplish? Can be really helpful to step back into, if you feel that all of a sudden you're confused on, okay, are we making progress? Are we not? What are we aiming at? And so that was really a big part of my program. I had wonderful professors. I think they were super supportive. I was glad to get to know them. It was a smaller school. Our classes were maybe 10 to 15, so you got to know your instructors pretty well.

Carrie: 11:10

and then with the internship you had to do, can you talk a little bit about that and what that experience was like?

Greg: 11:16

Yeah, thank you. So they called it a practicum at the time. My practicum, while I was in school, I had to do one in my final year. And the practicum I did was working with a hospice. And so this hospice, in Southern California, had a very developed program of bereavement counselors. There were a number of full-time bereavement counselors and there were all of the interns, so counseling interns such as myself, that would be there for one year. We did both counseling with those who were at the hospice receiving care or at their homes. And we also invited those who'd lost a loved one. We would make calls, offering our condolences and offering our services as therapists, as counselors. And so, we would see a lot of family members after a loved one had had died. I learned a ton about death and dying. I found it extremely rewarding. Challenging but rewarding. Gave me great perspective, too. You know, it seems so dark to people and I understand it is it can be very dark to think about death and, when we're doing all that work, I found that I really would appreciate every day, you know, you just, you really get a sense of like, Wow, I'm here today and I get to enjoy today. So, Wow, there was a peace in that.

Carrie: 12:32

Yeah. And did that particular practicum experience influence how you thought you wanted to move forward in your career path? Did you go to that practicum because you were interested in doing that for your career, or was that just the one that happened to click for you at that time?

Greg: 12:49

Yeah, so I knew it was one of the more popular ones. They also accepted a good number of students. I definitely had interest in it. Didn't have a lot of experience with death and dying in my own life. I had had a few grandparents when I was younger. Since then I've had family members die. I don't know that I was looking at it as like, Oh, I know I wanna do this. And yet once I did it, I realized like I definitely wanna make sure I help people see the loss. You know, it's not just death and dying that is loss in people's lives and helping them grieve the loss is something that I often talk with clients about. So it's been extremely helpful. It's definitely something that I enjoy working with individuals on. I didn't necessarily see it as like, this is what I wanna do afterwards. I hope that I would find a way to come back to it at some point.

Carrie: 13:34

So you feel like it just helped you incorporate that piece in your overall counseling therapy?

Greg: 13:40

Right, right. It helped me really think through the grief and loss that people experience. And how do I communicate that with individuals, you know, and how do we help them move through that grief and loss? Give them that education so that they have the markers and the things that are happening don't seem so strange because it has some patterns. Everyone's grief process is different. I should say that. And it really was helpful when you laid out some different Possibilities of things that people go through. They go, Oh, that's going on for me. Oh, that makes me feel a little bit better. Just knowing that that's a common response to grief and loss.

Carrie: 14:15

Yeah. I would think it would help in any therapy situation, because that touches everyone at some point. Right?

Greg: 14:21

Right. Absolutely. Grief and loss is a part of our lives, and I think there's a lot of times where we don't identify it as grief and loss and we don't process it as grief and loss, so it remains kind of unresolved and impacts us a lot.

Carrie: 14:34

Yeah. So after that practicum, what was your next step?

Greg: 14:39

Well, I thought it was gonna be to get a full-time job, but, in the midst of this, I graduated in 2009, so some would say it was the end of the late two thousands, mm-hmm. Recession and I was not seeing a full-time job that I could jump to. So I had gone to halftime at my job to do the practicum, and I was fortunate that my job was willing to have me back on full-time. So I went back full-time. And then I found a volunteer opportunity where I was working with veterans. Through that process, got some great experience working with adult veterans in this live-in facility in Southern California. I did that in the evenings while I worked full-time, and so I kept going, but I didn't find that full-time job until, gosh, it was probably, two and a half years after I graduated. So not exactly what I expected. I expected, you know, oh, this academic advising stuff is gonna be my stepping stone into working full time as a counselor therapist. And then it took me a little while and I eventually made my way to a full time position working in this Southern California County's foster treatment team. There were two psychiatrists and there were about seven or or so count therapists, including myself. And it had just been restructured. It used to be that different agencies would have their own therapists, and then the county wanted to do all the therapists under one organization and I happened to have a friend who told me about it and we had worked at the Hospice together. She says, Hey, they're gonna be hiring for this position. Are you interested? I can let the director know. And I said, Yeah, I'd definitely be interested. And so I put in my resume and cover letter and applied and got the job. Boy that was, I don't regret it. However, it was the hardest year and a half I've ever done. I learned a lot about myself and I learned one of the most important things, which is I don't think I'm going to be the right therapist to work with kids. Not just working in foster care, but working with kids and skills building is just different than what I thought it was gonna be. And I wanted to do more insight oriented therapy. Kids just don't have that yet, necessarily, yet. That's not where they're operating from, That's not what they come in to do, especially if they've had significant trauma, which many of the kids that I was working with did. They're a little bit more apprehensive to share much. Right. It was a very, very challenging year and a half.

Carrie: 17:01

What was your average day or week like in that kind of position? Like what were you doing? Yeah. I'm assuming were most of these kids coming in because their therapy was mandated by someone? What did that look like?

Greg: 17:12

Yeah. So in fact, they didn't come into the office much. We actually traveled to them in their homes and their schools. So often a week would look like you would set up your appointments and try to set them up in a way where you would go out to their homes or their schools. And you try to do it in a way where you were seeing people in the same areas. Otherwise you'd be driving all day. Yeah. Typically, these individuals were having some kind of problematic behavior, that was causing them to not do well in the home or in the school or in some environment that they needed in order to succeed. Some of the individuals would see our psychiatrist and part of seeing our psychiatrist for medications was also that they would be involved in therapy. We usually started out with like 13 sessions, and then we could ask for additional 13 sessions from the county, that was providing the services that we were billing for. You might have weeks that were same if you saw individuals, you know, Oh, I'm gonna see this individual at 9:00 AM at their home before they go to school. Let's say if their elementary school started a little later. Each week looked a little different. Especially if you're seeing clients, not weekly, but every other week. It was a challenge for me too, not to be in an office. I think I do better. Yeah. There were a lot of things about that job that I learned about my own needs within work. Mm-hmm. and one of them was, I don't do well when I'm on the road, so to speak, and I'm in other environments. I much prefer working in an office, even if that's a home office today.

Carrie: 18:41

Mm-hmm. So were you tasked with helping to improve their behavior? Like what was your Yeah objective?

Greg: 18:49

Yeah, so let's say they were having tough time regulating their emotion. They'd get really upset. So part of my role was to figure out what are treatment interventions that we can work on. Usually it was with the kids. Sometimes we would do both individual and family. Sometimes the family piece would be with the foster family, if there was a reunification plan with the biological family. Sometimes there would be sessions with the biological family to reinforce that. So that's just one example of the type of work I would do. There was some levels you had to be good about measuring success in small amounts and, sometimes it didn't always work. They would find their way to other more intensive care than a foster home. Unfortunately, Yeah. But many of the children and adolescents I worked with did remain in the foster homes, or they moved back in with biological parents.

Carrie: 19:40

So after that year and a half, what did you decide to do next?

Greg: 19:44

Yeah, so I stayed in touch with a lot of people from my previous institution and I actually found that I had an opportunity. My old boss at this university, I was working as an academic advisor, said, Hey, your, your position's gonna become available again. And I. Oh, wow. Maybe I go back to that work. I really enjoyed that work. I'm not thriving here. So after some thought, I applied and basically took back the job I had left a year and a half before that. Wow. Not many people necessarily do that. But it really allowed me to go back to something I felt successful in and did good work in. I stayed in that role for a year and then there was an opportunity to advance into a senior level academic advisor position on the campus. So I did that, for quite a while, for another three years.

Carrie: 20:34

Did you have any kind of mental health counseling within that role or were you strictly doing academic counseling? I know some people who are licensed kind of, Yeah. They are utilized in that way, I guess I should say Yeah. In the office when that license is there.

Greg: 20:49

You know, there was some level that I would try to pay attention to the students mental health, but I definitely kept my scope, at least with my one on ones within the academic advising realm. We had a counseling services office on our campus that I would definitely refer students to and bring up concerns with specific students if I needed to. and then with the full staff, maybe we'd have conversations about student mental health. But I kind of tried to hold what they call your scope of practice. I was keeping my scope of practice just to the academic advising in that sense. Although, you know, I mentioned later on I went and did the senior level academic advisor position and at the same time, My wife was transitioning to graduate school and so couldn't work as much during graduate school, so I took on another evening opportunity while she was in graduate school. I was doing part-time therapy with a kind of like a private practice, where they were doing all the administrative pieces and I was writing the notes and seeing the clients and did a little bit of profit sharing. So I did that three nights a week for about two years while I was also working full-time. So that was very much part-time evening work, but I was so glad to get back into it. Because through that process I had to get the hours and I got my hours just about done with the full-time foster family therapy role. And once I got hours, then I was licensed and could do a little bit more. It gives you a little more flexibility. And that also was an opportunity by someone who I had worked with at the foster care. They said, Hey, you know, I'm doing this in addition to my full-time job. I'm doing this in the evenings. Would you Be interested in learning about it? And I said, Yeah, connect me. It's funny how often, I tell students all the time, but it's often those individuals, you know that make connections in different settings that help you find those next work opportunities.

Carrie: 22:38

Yeah, absolutely. That's true networking, right? Mm-hmm. like your actual network of people who know you and who you've worked with. Cuz when we talk about networking in a lot of contexts that can sound very shallow and sound very like, Oh, go to this happy hour and hand out your card kind of thing. But really a lot of these times that people show up in your network, it's just natural, right? They're just people who know you and who see an opportunity and go, Oh, hey, this person would be good at that. Or, Oh, I wonder if this person is aware of that. When students learn about networking, it's important to think about how natural that can be. And I think that takes some of the intimidation factor away from it, from people who are kind of maybe not extroverts and wanna go to all these events that introduce themselves to strangers, right? Because I think that's sometimes how people think about it. But really your natural network that you can really invest in the people around you, lot of times those are the people who really make these significant impacts on your path.

Greg: 23:37

Absolutely. Yeah. That was my experience and I tell students that a lot is how do you utilize those who are already in your life, that you may not be thinking of all the time, and that's okay. Right. But you worked with them at a previous job or you know them through another individual and they're doing work that you're interested in.

Carrie: 23:53

So that was in California, and now we know you live in a different state. So what is the bridge there? How did that transition happen for you?

Greg: 24:00

Yeah, so my wife and I had made plans to move out of California and be closer to family in another state. When she graduated, I started applying for positions at other institutions in that state that we wanted to move to. I was fortunate I was applying for academic advising positions and I had, you know, the first round interview and then I saw a position that I was interested in. You never know how it'll work out. You go, Well, I'm interested in this. Right. And it was a position within a career center and it was specifically working with liberal arts students in the College of Liberal Arts and the Career Center. It was a split position. And so I applied. I came out to this institution that I'm working for now, and I interviewed and I got the job. And I was so excited to start a new part of my career as a higher ed individual working with students from the College of Liberal Arts. Now, it wasn't just doing one on one appointments. There definitely was part of that, but it was also creating strategies around how do we get career concepts and career education into the classroom more? How do we get it built into what students experience in their college experience? It was a great position.

Carrie: 25:12

So, I'm so glad you brought this up and I'm glad we get a chance to talk about this cuz I've worked with students, primarily in the arts, but I've also worked with a lot of students throughout liberal arts. So much conversation about higher education in general has changed over the years, but I think particularly from parental perspectives, a lot of times parents have this hesitation for their students to go into liberal arts because it seems like, oh, it's not business, it's not engineering, it's not pre-med, it's not these things that seem to have this guaranteed career path. Not true, but that's a whole nother conversation, right? Mm-hmm. So do you have some advice or some things that you would say to students or their parents who perhaps really wanna go into a liberal arts major, but there's this hesitation about the career piece. What do you say to them?

Greg: 26:01

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the big things I emphasize is that, you know, when you get a liberal arts education, you're taught to think in a specific way. You're looking at a process of thinking, a process of examining, creating solutions, through almost like a lens of, let's say it's a lens of anthropology or sociology, both social sciences. But that fall under the liberal arts category. And so that was the process by which you problem solve and think. There are companies that are gonna need that specific lens in the way that they're gonna need that person's ability to think on a sociological thought process, right? Mm. Yeah. To do the work. I talk to students about being that unique candidate in a lot of ways. And part of that is getting some internship experience along the way. That can be translated in a lot of different ways. Maybe your internship ends up being the thing you love and you find a job that's in that line. But a lot of times internships are meant to give you experience that you can move around, with that first job, especially. You're gonna have a really specific way that you think about things from the combination of your internship and your studies in school. And so utilize that in the way that you can not only just fit the qualifications that they're looking for, but stand out,is often what I tell student.

Carrie: 27:23

Are there some other things that you advise students to proactively seek out on their own, that isn't necessarily built into their academic career plan or within the resources on a campus?

Greg: 27:35

Yeah. The main one that I emphasized some programs did have this built in. It was a requirement, but some did not. And so I tried to emphasize the importance of experiential education. Often that's an internship, but it could be other forms of experiences. So say volunteer work. Student teaching is another example. The big emphasis was getting that experience outside the classroom that you could talk about where you did something that really is relatable to work. Sometimes it's harder to translate the papers that you wrote to work. Although I've talked with students about how do you translate your paper writing into grant writing skills, potentially down the road. Yeah, things like that. But really doing those office like tasks or doing things that build upon those unique skills you don't get in the classroom was always something that I was trying to encourage students to step outside their comfort zone and get, if they could.

Carrie: 28:31

You know, there's all of these things students can take right to, mm-hmm. evaluate their personality and their skill set and their interests and all of that. Do you have a couple of favorites that you find are really particularly helpful or that you think students really connect with a lot in your experience that you would recommend that students try to find?

Greg: 28:49

Yeah, so I haven't always found that there is like one. It really is dependent on the student in terms of like an assessment or some kind of testing. One that I tend to encourage students to consider because there's different ones that are even online as some kind of values-based card sort to think through their values and how that influences the work that they wanna pursue.

Carrie: 29:10

Yeah, I love that.

Greg: 29:12

And then there are a host of assessments, but it really is dependent on the student. We offer some through the career center I work at, but I don't say this is the one, you know. It's really a conversation between the student and I, when it comes to assessments. I find that, you know, the biggest thing, it really is, you know, when students are not sure, sometimes I say, Take a chance and try something and find out if you like it or not. That's where you know, that student employment can really be that first step. If a student's open to it and finding out, Oh, you know what? I don't like this type of work. Okay, at least you know that now. Let's see how we utilize the experience you got in that role to get to the next thing that you might like more.

Carrie: 29:49

Yeah, absolutely. What you learned as a therapist, going through your training to be a therapist, Do you find that some of that is uniquely helping you as a career education professional? Are there things that you think, Oh, I'm so thankful I had that because now I can utilize that in setting that you feel like are just helping you excel more in what you're doing?

Greg: 30:13

That's a really good question. I think that it makes me aware of the emotional pieces to finding a job and making sure that that's a part of the conversation when a student wants it to be. I don't push it. I think that's the key is it's like students aren't coming for emotional support necessarily. They might be. But they might just need help with a resume or they might just be coming for this, but sometimes it's clear that there's a need to talk about the emotional pieces of like, finding a job. Yeah. Finding a job can be a little challenging. How do we work through those pieces? And sometimes there's elements that, you know, you see mental health restricting an individual's ability to find the next thing, the next opportunity. And so making sure to maybe point that out if it seems appropriate.

Carrie: 30:57

So you are also now doing therapy in the evenings again, right? Mm-hmm. So now that this is kind of the second time around that you've been doing that. Can you talk a little bit about how that works with your life and why you're choosing to do that? Do you feel like you kind of have to turn different switches on and off, you know, as you go from your daytime position to the nighttime? Like how is that all working for you?

Greg: 31:19

Great question. I do find that there is a little bit of like switching from one part of me to another in some ways. Not completely, but there is definitely a little bit of like, okay, the higher education, full-time Greg is done. Now it's time to put my therapy hat on, if you will. Mm-hmm. I do it because I really, I enjoy it. I don't know what the future holds for me in terms of kind of this balance, but getting back into it, it took another hiatus from doing therapy when we made the move. And being a therapist, getting back into it, gosh, it's a part of me. It's not like I can just let it go. It's interesting. I don't know what it'll look like moving forward and how to juggle the two consistently. It's a lot. And, it also helps though, I mean, having that side job, sometimes when I need that extra like motivation. I get it from both jobs for the other job, you know. I don't mind having the two different spaces that I operate from.

Carrie: 32:17

I love the way you spoke about this because I think sometimes having a second job, people assume, Oh, you know, they're doing that cuz they have to for some reason, or it's not something somebody would wanna do because it's quote, another job or second job. But there are so many people out there who have a second thing that they do because they want to. Yeah. Because they love that thing that they're doing. And I just love the way you spoke about that cuz I hope students can remember you can do more than one thing at the same time. And it doesn't have to be this, ugh, I have to do two things. For a lot of people. It's not that. That's not what it is. They're doing the second thing because there's something that they miss doing. Like you mentioned, or there's another part of them that really kind of flourishes in that second environment, but they still wanna keep the first one, you know? So I just think that's a great reminder that having a second job or a second gig or a side hustle or whatever you wanna, you know, it's different for a lot of people. Yeah. But for a lot of people, that's something they want and they love and they flourish in, and that can be a good thing. So to keep your mind open to that, that that's definitely a possibility that you could really enjoy.

Greg: 33:31

Absolutely. And there's pros and cons to everything in terms of doing side gigs. And we talk to students about, if you can have a job that you can do when you want, that's great. And does it give you all of the other conditional things you need? One of the things we're seeing is students really considering all their options and thinking through all of the pieces of what makes for my life working well? Yeah. And sometimes that's, if you can work a job that's only halftime, but gives you benefits, and then you can do what you really want to do. But it's a job where you'd be doing more independent work. And you're getting paid in a way where you wouldn't have benefits if you just did that thing. Benefits being, you know, healthcare and retirement and some of those things that students think about and they need, and they also feel this tension of like, ah, I wish I could have it all, you know, and I get that.

Carrie: 34:20

Yeah, absolutely. In your work with students right now, are there any prevalent questions that you're hearing a lot about right now or kind of the current things that you're talking with students about? Is there anything different that's emerged in the last few years or anything that's kind of become an overwhelming part of your conversations?

Greg: 34:40

Yeah, and I will say that I've advanced from that role I was describing into another role, the associate director role that you introduced me and in that role, I don't see students as often, and so I'm having to rely on the staff that I supervise to understand what students are looking at. However, I still do presentations from time to time and see students here and there, and one of the things that I'm seeing is students are really starting to open their eyes to, well, there are a lot of opportunities and options out there. What do I consider? I think that it may have helped students to actually become more flexible and think about jobs and think about like what all the options are and how do I access this with what I have. Rather than, Well, I got this degree, therefore I need to go this way. I think there's a lot more students thinking about what does it look like to have work that isn't as stressful. Right. And so, mm-hmm. with the change in work being a lot more focused on hybrid or remote work, since the pandemic started, I think there's students that are really focused on. Can I have a job where I don't go in every day or I work from home exclusively? Will that make sense for me? Versus I really like meeting with people in person. I don't know how I would do if I had to do just a remote job. Yeah, I think there is a lot more conversations for students where they're thinking about the values that they hold and how work can support those values and I think frankly a lot of it is, will this job support me in this economy in terms of, you know, with inflation and how do I make my bills work for me at in this entry level job? So, yeah, I think that the conversation shifted in some of those ways.

Carrie: 36:18

Yeah, absolutely. The pandemic's obviously affected society a lot, but I think it's also encouraging to know that those concerns and those issues that have been existing in the workforce are already filtering down to students. Because I think that's gonna almost force more change, right?

Greg: 36:34

Right? Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of awareness and there's a lot of proactivity in students and thinking through what they want to find in a job and negotiate in a job. And I think that could be uncomfortable for employers, but I think there's great opportunity in it for both employers and these graduates that are going out into the workforce to create working environments that work better for them and work better for their colleagues.

Carrie: 36:57

Yeah, absolutely. Well, looking back over your journey, do you have any big picture advice for students as they are either applying to college and trying to consider what their major should be and what kind of career path they should start out on? Or perhaps students who are already in college, even students who have recently graduated. Is there like big picture advice as far as career path and education path that you've learned along the way or that you've learned from the students that you've worked with over the years that you would wanna share?

Greg: 37:29

Gosh, it's such a big question. The thing that comes to mind is it's great to pursue a goal. At some level maybe hold it a little open-handed and have other options. I think about, you know, students that I've worked with that are pursuing medical school or, you know, they have a very specific institution they want to go to for graduate work. I think it's great to have those goals and to pursue'em. And also Don't lose sight of the fact there's other options that could work out or be even better than you could imagine. And so I think that's the big one is hold things openhanded to a certain degree, continue to pursue them, and consider other options as things come along. My pursuit of different steps in my career path did not look anything like I thought. And I think that was because I tried to have an open mind about what I needed and what made sense for me and the next steps.

Carrie: 38:19

Yeah. And even going back to those student positions you had, if you had never had those Right. The whole thing would've looked different. Right. So, Absolutely. It's been so interesting to hear people talk about how all of these different pieces, like puzzle pieces in their life kind of culminate, you know, in what they end up doing. Whether that's one thing or more than one thing, but it's important to take note of those pieces and kind of stop along your path and think about which pieces are important to you, because that can also change over time, right? Right. Like maybe the things that were most important to you at 18 when you're applying to college and you then you get halfway through college and things may be a little different, and then you graduate college and things may be a little different. You get into your career and things may be, you know, your priorities and the things that are important to you, or perhaps the things you thought were gonna be a certain way and are not. Right? Mm-hmm. it's important to reevaluate those, and be okay with that just because you don't end up reaching a goal you had a while ago. It's not a failure, it's a reevaluation. Right. And you're shooting for something different.

Greg: 39:22

Absolutely. I think you nailed it. I talk to students all the time about: be sure to reevaluate your goals, even over the course of the time in college, how your goals may change and your values may change, and what you think you need when you started college may be different than when you're getting ready to complete college. There is a level of flexibility and ability to step back from time to time and self reflect and say, what do I need now? What's good for me? And those around me, whether that's family or friends moving forward.

Carrie: 39:55

I wanted to ask if you can give a little sales pitch, so to speak, or give students reason why they should utilize their career services office on their campus. I'm sure most students know that it exists. Right. But, I've heard some students over the years say they feel like it's kind of intimidating cause they feel like they should have it all together before they go it there. Or they should super polished resume already ready or that they should know what they wanna do before they go in there, perhaps. Or they think the career services won't understand what path they're wanting. You know, all of these things. Yeah. All of these reasons that students give not to go in there. So can you tell students who are listening why they should utilize the career services office on their campus?

Greg: 40:36

Yeah. From my experience, career services offices are often wanting to give that next step help helps students find that next step. I always talk to students about that same idea of like, you don't have to have it figured out yet. You don't have to be at a certain step, come where you're at, explain where you're at as best you can in terms of pursuing things or having a resume, or not even having a resume at all. And let's create steps. Let's create little steps that feel doable and manageable. We have drop in advising services. Maybe you come to drop in advising once a month for a while just to get a few steps that you can take a few actionable items. So I think about that a lot, is helping students to think through what are actionable steps you can take, that we can support along the way. Sometimes that's resources we can give you, and sometimes it's talking to others about their career paths. So all of that plays out, I think, in hopefully getting students to come in and get hopefully a little bit of like a jolt of energy, a motivation of, Okay, I can do this. I can take a couple more steps towards pursuing something.

Carrie: 41:37

Yeah, I love that. Just breaking it down to the next step or two. You know, when you hear career services, it sounds like you have to have this big massive thing done, either soon or in advance. And really it can just be just like you said, just the next step. That helps it to be less intimidating. Yep. Well, Greg, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you sharing your story with us and giving this great advice. Thank you so much.

Greg: 42:02

Awesome. Well, thanks for having me, Carrie.

Carrie: 42:05

Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram@pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.