Higher Education/Student Affairs Experience

[estariz]

Hello all! I've been lurking on this forum on and off for awhile, so I've been building up a few questions that hopefully you all can help me out with.

I'm a junior psychology major with a minor in philosophy wishing to pursue graduate education in Higher Education Administration or Student Affairs. As of right now, my GPA is average, probably not too competitive. I'm definitely going to be banking more on my experience and letters of recommendation.

I'm most interested in getting a career in either admissions, first year programs (orientation, transitioning to college, freshman advising, etc), or academic advising. Not too sure at the moment but I have ideas, but hopefully graduate school will help me narrow my decision down further.

That being said, I'm pretty lost on what to do in terms of summer work or internships. Work in this field seems a lot more difficult to come by, and I haven't had much luck finding anything through my school or on the internet. If anyone could point me in the right direction of where I should be looking for work or internships that would help tons! Thank you in advance!

[ZeChocMoose]

I would suggest to get involved on your campus. People with your interest tend to be orientation leaders in the summer, residential advisors, campus tour leaders, etc. I would look around to see where you can work on campus in the summer. Usually a lot of the formalized summer internships are geared towards master's students in higher ed/student affairs.

[Beverly Y.]

I currently work in Student Affairs and the biggest piece of advice I've been given about pursuing a career in this field is NETWORKING is crucial! Definitely get involved on your campus, get to know people and what they do, what dept/office they're affliated with, and maybe sit down and talk with them about how they got to where they are now. That's how I'm getting to know quite a few people on campus. And you'd be surprised how willing people are to connect you with other folks in the field!

If you want your fingers to do the walking, look into joining NASPA (http://www.naspa.org/) and the Placement Exchange (http://www.theplacementexchange.org/).

[abr2116]

I agree that you should get involved as much as possible NOW. The job market is tight so when you get done with your graduate program you want to have as much experience as possible. Best advice I could give you is to not over pay for your masters program. I completed my masters in higher ed/student affairs from one of the "highly ranked" programs. You have several good programs close to you in Virginia (UVA, William & Mary, VA Tech, etc.). Avoid private school programs that are highly priced. I've been working for four years and just paid off my student loans; I wish very much that I had completed my program at a state school or somewhere that provided opportunities to fund my studies. Avoid debt; this is a great field but salaries do not warrant $30,000 plus in debt.

[michigan girl]

Some private schools have one-year higher education/student affairs programs and offer a graduate assistantship as part of your financial aid package. That really helps lessen the burden.