Today was my first day on the job and it was great. First days are always awkward… no matter what. You don’t know what to wear, you don’t want to be late and you certainly don’t want to make the wrong impressions. First things first, although I will be living on campus – the apartment that we are supposed to move into is still being cleaned and painted so we are homeless at the moment. My husband and I are staying with our friend who lives about 10 minutes across town for about another week until we can move. He is a great friend but we are really REALLY looking forward to getting out of here. Just another thing to juggle this week – no biggie.
So in my last position, I was expected to dress up everyday (heels, suits… the whole shebang) and so because I would rather be over dressed than under dressed, I threw on the pumps and suited up for the first day. One of the first things that was said to me was, “sandals are allowed and we like to be comfortable so relax!” WHAT!? My prayers have been answered and my first day was starting off well.
First days are usually full of meeting random people and trying hopelessly to remember everyones name. I met everyone in Admissions, Career Development, and a couple people here and there in the library and Academic Advising. One of my favorite people – the HR person, was great and so helpful. I had the very important health insurance/retirement meeting and low and behold… the health insurance is AMAZING!!! These people actually care. I went around and met a couple students who were around campus for the summer and checked out my office space that is actually in the residence hall that I will be living and working in. It’s great. Then we headed to lunch which was again, fantastic - we all went out and had a great discussion about the tomato-situation and Clinton’s concession.
Overall, I really think I am going to love it here. I also think I am going to learn a great deal about myself and about the field of student affairs and residence life. Everyone has had at least one or two student development courses and the idea of “fully developing college students” is behind every action and is the purpose of department. I really think that because I had such a challenging professional experience during the past two years, I will appreciate the smaller things like wearing flip flops to work, half day fridays and even professional training a lot more. Stay tuned!
<3
