“Let Me Know How I Can Support You”

Since graduating from my Student Affairs Master’s Program this past June, and spending the last three months in my first post-grad position as a Resident Director, I’ve found myself ending many of my one-on-one conversations with this phrase: “Let me know how I can support you”.  It’s short, sweet, and powerful, and has become a staple in my tool kit of intentionality.  Now, however, as I settle more into my new role and responsibilities, I have started to question where my intentions lie, while asking myself the golden grad school question of “now what?”

Support has looked like many things in my short but seasoned life.  As a first-generation Filipino-American, I saw the undying support of my parents as they encouraged me to attend college.  I also saw its shortcomings once I was accepted and we were unaware of the resources available to me and my family.  I felt the pressures of my family, disguised as support, but without the ability or the navigational capital to actually make it happen.

I have also seen support in the form of my college mentors.  They so badly wanted to see me succeed and reach the potential they knew I was capable of, so I worked hard to find that potential.  Looking back, I wonder why I wasn’t told that Student Affairs was a career I could actually pursue.  Still, it beats a faculty advisor who once told me that grad school was only for the “best of the best”.  At the time I thought he was being just as supportive.

I have seen support succeed and I’ve seen it fail, all with the best intentions in mind.  And now I catch myself saying it to every staff member and colleague that may need to hear it, while also digging deeper into what it’s actually asking.  I feel as though it’s putting it back in my student’s court, asking them to reflect on how I can best support them as they traverse through the development that I also feel responsible for.  There are only so many affirmations I can give them before I start to wonder what I can give next.  Especially when I’m unsure of what it looks like. 

I’ve learned in the past few months that there is no one way to go about supporting our students. If there were a best practice for this, we would all be doing it.  With all the different needs of our students, we need to be in innovative mindsets that allow us to embrace the discomfort that comes with not knowing what to do next.  I’ve made attempts to move from “let me know” to “this is what I can do.”  The support and care I have for my students are abundant, and it pairs nicely when I stand beside them with a plan.

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