SEAHO Report - Fall 2021 - 16

FEATURE ARTICLES
A Thought Piece
Anonymously Submitted
Today, I am really wrestling with a personal question: should I stay in student affairs? More specifically, should
I stay in housing and residence life? Over the past four years, I have served in some capacity as a housing and
residence life full-time professional, and it has become increasingly more difficult (partially due to a global
pandemic, the likes of which we have not seen in about a century!). Within my admittedly short-time in the
field, I have seen people-students, parents, colleagues, random strangers- become more and more hateful,
demanding, inconsiderate, and, at times, amoral. I certainly hope that this has not been the experience for all of
us within the profession, but I cannot stop the little voice in my head saying that something is horribly, horribly
wrong.
Like many others, I started my journey into higher education administration, wide-eyed and caught up in the
idea that I could really help people and change lives for the better. In full honesty, that still has yet to be proven
wrong. However, I have learned so much more that comes along with it. Student affairs is more than just helping
students achieve their fullest potential through a rigorous curriculum that prepares them for their future career
paths. College is a big business.
Now some of you might take a moment and think to yourself: " well, duh! " I am by no means starting an antiCapitalist
rant that competition in the market has destroyed the integrity of the world. Quite frankly, more than
one individual within the student affairs profession has told me verbatim as such that " college is a business "
and what comes with that is the focus on money. Money matters. Famously, " money makes the world go round "
(a shout out to all the former theater kids in the room). What I am saying is that I have become disillusioned. I
remember hearing in my graduate degree program for student affairs that so much research was being done as
to why there is a mass exodus from the profession within the first five years of working in student affairs, and
now I get it. Succinctly put, people like me realize the dream of joining the field to make the world a better place
through education is a fantasy disguising the fact that bills need to be paid, bodies need to fill beds, students
need high satisfaction in order to maintain retention goals, and the bottom-line stays in the black. I will never
be " successful " within this line of work because I do not play the game well. I genuinely stink at politics, which
I was told from day one by my very first supervisor (I still appreciate his candor and wisdom to this day!), and I
wear my heart on my sleeve. I am not cut out for big business.
This concept gives me pause and makes me question, " How am I going to be able to live or make a living if
I stink at my chosen profession?! " I can't be the only one having these thoughts or questioning my decision
to be a helper within student affairs. In fact, I know I'm not because I hear about countless social media
pages of current and former #SAPros screaming into the void of just how messed up this job really is. (In full
transparency, I refrain from social media in general because I know the internet can be a very depressing place.)
In short, I am not alone. YOU are not alone. This job, this profession, is honestly rough. There are too many
expectations and demands that are not even remotely possible to meet. There is an illness in the field, and
something is just not right. Why haven't we found a solution? Why do we get caught in this endless cycle of
burnout, self-sabotage, and, in some cases, self-medication? Why do we subject ourselves to this monotony
of toxicity? This, dear reader, is the reason we have such high turnover in our field from my non-clinical,
assessment-less perspective.
And yet... And yet, there still is something unique about this certain time in people's lives when they begin to
question, learn, and develop through their experience at a college or university and blossom into the person that
they intend to be for the rest of their lives. There truly is something magical about watching a student " get it "
for the first time, ranging from learning how to do laundry away from home to discovering their own values
and worldview. It is addictive to see a student thrive after surviving through a horrible setback in life and think,
" I may not be able to change the world, but today I helped change their small corner of the world. " It is that
one little spark of magic within this big business. It is that darn starfish story that seems to appear in every
motivational speech at departmental retreats and trainings.
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SEAHO Report - Fall 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SEAHO Report - Fall 2021