Reflections on the Past Five Years. #BCC #SAPro #comm_college

Monday morning and I’m sitting in bed watching Tom & Jerry cartoons during my 2 days of “unemployment” before I start my new journey at Rutgers University-New Brunswick on Wednesday February 10^th, 2016. My new role titled Investigations Specialist will have me working in the Office of Student Affairs and Compliance under the Title IX Coordinator/Director of Compliance. To say that I am excited, nervous, and ready is an understatement but I must take a moment to reflect on my first professional home, Bergen Community College.

This past week was a world wind experience. Even now it doesn’t feel like I’ve actually left Bergen but I know that’s because the relationships I made there have transcended my position at the institution. I was lucky enough to work with my best friends every day for the past 5 years and that is the hardest piece to leave behind. I look forward to building new relationships at RU but I know that each place I go as an #SAPro will hold a different place in my heart and Bergen, well Bergen will always be the place where I found my love for student affairs.

I never thought for one second that I would end up working at my local community college. Yup, that’s right I said local. Bergen Community College is in my hometown. I went through the Paramus school district and many of my classmates ended up attending Bergen Community College. Now, I won’t hesitate in saying that I did not want to end up at community college. Not only did I want to go straight to a four year but I held the same stigma as many others still do about community college. It is the same stigma I now try to break every chance I get. But back in 2005 that stigma as the one I also believed in. So in 2011 when I was looking for internship sites for my masters BCC was not my first option but it’s the one I ended up taking. It’s the one that changed my life.

Bergen became my stepping stone into student affairs. Bergen is where I found some of the hardest working student affairs professionals I think I will ever meet. It’s also where I found some of the hardest working students I will ever meet. I look forward to seeing some of my familiar faces at RU when I begin working there because so many of my students transfer to RU. The opportunity to see those familiar faces is what makes the move less daunting. I guess that’s part of the reason I don’t think Bergen will ever leave me. My students or students of future graduating classes will be at all institutions around the country and that’s one of the best things about BCC.

My students like me transitioned on but took all the lessons that Bergen taught them with them but just like me they cannot truly disconnect. We take the relationships and the lessons with us everywhere we go and its part of what makes us who we are as we continue our unique journey’s. Bergen did that.

So thank you Bergen. Thank you for teaching me so much. Thank you for bringing me some of my best friends. Thank you for letting me take part in so many amazing opportunities. Thank you for letting me work with some of the brightest students. Thank you for letting me go. And most of all thank you for welcoming me in with open arms back in January of 2011. I hope I make you proud. As for you RU look out for us #comm_college folks cause just like so many of my students, here I come!