I attended the conference with my new co-workers Mike and Jeremy. When we arrived on the first day, we met our mentor groups (a smaller group of conference participants with two mentors, or conference faculty) and started on a whirlwind week of professional development, workshops, opportunities for networking and lots of fun! We had speakers introduce us to many concepts and ideas that we will will be coming in contact with during our time in admissions, including financial aid, current trends in higher education, FERPA and public speaking. In addition, we split up into three smaller groups to have more specific training in the area that suited us. I went to the workshops for people who had been in the profession for 0 - 6 months where we talked a lot about the basics of working in admissions. We talked about reading applications, traveling, doing interviews, giving presentations and got tons of questions answered!
In addition, we spent time in our mentor groups participating in a mock admission committee meeting, discussing policy to practice and even giving a 5 minute presentation to get a sense of how we do in front of a group. I spoke about social justice as St. Mike's and got some very helpful feedback about how I can improve my presence in front of a group. Having an opportunity to interact with so many great people in this profession made me even more excited for my new position!
We also got to have some fun during the week - we attended a New Hampshire Fisher Cats baseball game and had free time to socialize with our new colleagues. I was also able to have some time to meet up with our close family friends who live in Hampstead, NH, which was an added bonus.
I had a great week and absolutely cannot wait to start full time on August 16th!
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