Career InterviewPerson Interviewed: Joan Muszynski

Wednesday, 23rd of March 2018 Location and timing of the meeting: Union’s Liar Bar, 11am

The meeting place and the background noise prevented me from making a good quality recording of our interview. For this reason I decided to, with the notes I took from our conversation, create the following slides.

She currently works as…Student Support Advisor at the University of Dundee : • She offers a generic support for students and

members of staff. • She collaborates in the “Stay on Course”

program, assisting students struggling in their academic life and creating with them, a plan of action to overcome their problems. In addition, she will keep track of their progress, and intervene if needed.

In charge of the organisation and impartation of the Suicide Prevention and Intervention Training (ASIST and SafeTALK), and Stress Management workshops.

Coordinator in charge of the recruitment, training and development of the Peer-Connection mentoring program, carried out by (old) students to (new) students.

Part of the Corporate Parenting scheme, providing help to vulnerable students with problematic backgrounds to complete a higher level education. As part of the program, she is to make sure that the students that she has been entrusted with, are getting the proper academic, emot ional and psycholog ica l suppor t . Additionally, she is also to write reports about their progress in all these areas. She currently has 27 students under her care.

She collaborates in the management of the Humanitarian Scholarship Panel, and its selection process. The offered grant is aimed to cover the accommodation, education and living expenses of 5 refugees for a one year masters course. In addition, the scholarship-holding students would be provided with psychological support over this period of time.

She is member of the BA Professional Development Board that is responsible of making sure that, every module provided by the University, is being carried out efficiently, i.e. meeting the students needs. For this, she reads the evaluation students make on their modules, and based on these, considers the changes needed to be made to further improve on the quality of their impartation.

She participates in the Distance Learners Forum, making sure that their material is accessible and are meeting the needs of the international distant learners. The students’ feedbacks are taken as reference when making decisions on the changes needed to improve the service the University is providing them.

She also helps in the writing of policies for the University. To be more precise, she is in charge of the writing of protocols and procedures staff members and/or students should follow when confronting a certain issue, so as for them to know what to do, and whom to turn to for help.

Organiser of Welcoming Events, and the selection of trustworthy Student Ambassadors capable of ensuring the wellbeing of the new coming students.

Ongoing Projects:• She is working on the elaboration of a website named “Live Smart,

Learn Smart”, accessible to students through the University of Dundee official website, or its library “Lib Guide” online service. • This webpage is intended to provide students with the necessary

information to help them both, in the searching of future career opportunities, and in the overcoming of problems they might face in their transition to, and during their university life.

• The authors behind the webpage are further planning on the creation of a handbook that would compile all the gathered information. They expect the webpage information to be useful for, not only the distant and present university students, but also the members of staff.

• She is collaborating in the research and future publishing of an article discussing, “The Holistic Support in Student Transition”.

Education:She has a degree in Biological Science, with a specialisation in Environment.

She was planning to become an Environmental Manager once she had graduated, but found that such position did not exist.

The difficulty she later faced in her search for jobs, led her to discover new paths and interests, these bearing little to no similarity to her original degree.

Work Experience Before UniversityNurse assistant at her father’s Dental Office.

Manager and assistant in her mother’s Camping Caravan Site. She would, at times, be entrusted with the running of the entire holiday camping site. During those times, she would have to organise and supervise the work of the employees, as well as greet, register and make sure that the needs of each customer was being met.

These experiences helped her develop more refined social skills, as she had to learn to understand and tailor her behaviour to the different people and situations they were in. As an example, she explained that when working at the dentist, she was to expect to have to deal with people that were feeling anxious about the appointment. Whereas in the campsite, people were more likely to approach her with a more carefree demeanour.

Furthermore, the variety of roles she carried out in both positions, helped her gain a better perspective of the importance of being respectful of the people you work with. That is, not looking down on the employees whose position and “function” you might consider to be inferior or less important than yours. This further aided in the development of good leadership skills.

Work Experience After University:1. She worked in an Environmental Education and Employment Transition project. Their service included not only the impartation of environmental awareness lessons to young schoolers, but also the instruction of unemployed adults to “make them” become more employable. That is, they provided them with training programs, and later with the opportunity to practise the learned skills in the environmental lessons the company organised for schools. Joan commented that the change they underwent was not limited to a boosting in their knowledge and competences, but also in their self-confidence and sense of self-worth.

2. She worked in Further Education (FE) as a tutor, lecturing on: Personal and Social Development (PSD), Child Development, Anatomy (to sport students), and Statistics.

3. She worked as a peripatetic tutor for a Community Learning Organisation in Fife. Her job involved travelling to different areas of Scotland, to convince young people to enter and complete a higher level education that would improve their future.

4. She tutored and imparted writing courses in the WEA Scotland. This organisation provides educational opportunities for adults to help them improve their quality of life. With time, she ascended from being a tutor to becoming a tutor organiser, managing and supervising the efficiency of the services offered.

5. She worked in prison, teaching Literacy Learning to inmates that were about to be released into community. Her role thus, involved accompanying the prisoners through their transition, preparing them and instructing them on the necessary communication and social skills to be able to reintegrate in society.

Volunteering: 1. National Childbirth Trust: During the nine years she worked for them, she accomplished the following:

1. She undertook 2.5 years of antenatal training before she started imparting classes on the subject herself. The training provided her with some counselling skills, as well as with information on relationships and on mental health.

2. Joan spoke fondly about the mentor she had during her training period. This was a NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) practitioner who taught her relaxation and breathing methods, as well as stress management techniques. She admits these lessons to have become essential and extremely useful in the years that followed.

3. She carried out in the organisation several stress management workshops.

4. She became member of the committee.

2. She volunteered for the Fife Maternity Services Liaison Forum.

3. She actively participated and helped in the organising of activities for her village’s Youth Club.

What do I need to do to ensure myself a good job position?

1. Taking part in a variety of different projects to gain a wider perspective and understanding of the world and its dynamics. Every experience teaches you a lesson. For instance, in Joan’s case, it was through the debating society she was part of while still at University, that she refined her communication skills, gained self-confidence and lost her fear of talking in public. The skills she at that moment started developing, have become an essential part of her current work, foremost when having to give presentations or training to a big number of people.

2. One needs to be autodidact and care for the expansion of one’s own knowledge. She explained that, having attended to various workshops, she noticed that most of them presume that the attending audience already have a certain understanding of the topic they are treating, and thus part their teaching from that level. It follows that, to be able to benefit from it and gain a full understanding of the subject, one must do some preparation beforehand by themselves (“to fill in the gaps”).

3. You need to know the dynamics of the organisation you are working for. Joan set the example that if one was to work for the University, one should know how it functions. Only then will one be capable to provide a good advise and further guidance to a student.

Things to Bear in Mind when Treating with People

• One needs to respect the importance the other gives to an issue, independently of what your thoughts are on the subject. That is, even if it seems trivial, if it is causing the subject distress, then it deserves to be attended to and cared for.

• Need to be aware of the limits of your position. For instance, from the moment we started our interview, Joan made clear that her role was not that of a counsellor. She must keep in mind that the service for which she has been formed only enables her to offer help at a superficial level. It follows that, by overstepping the boundaries of her formation, she might make more harm than good.

• Need to keep a realistic view of the situation. That is, one must bear in mind that the help one provides is up to the other to accept or decline. Thus, if the person you have assisted did not recover, you mustn’t assume responsibility for it, as you did all you could to help him.

Necessary Skills1. Good team working skills, being able to rely, trust and respect each other.

2. Need of resilience and stamina to withstand being exposed to misfortunes.

3. Being able to remain calm and not panic when something doesn’t turn out to be as expected.

4. Active listening, attending to not only to the spoken words, but to the subtle changes in the gestures and intonation of the person you are talking to.

5. Before giving any advice, need to be sure you have a clear understanding of the person’s situation.

6. Need to be predisposed to act and intervene when a problem arises, having no fear of erring. Joan said that one has to see errors as challenges that make progress more interesting.

7. Be self-reflective, continuously looking back and analysing the efficiency of your actions, in order to make changes if necessary.

8. Need to be self-aware. To be able to discern and put aside your feelings and background, for them not to interfere with your work. In addition, one needs to realise when a task surpasses his capabilities, and when they should step back and refer the patient to someone who could provide them with more/better help.

10. Having an assertive approach and behaviour with the other, taking into account her emotional state and the contextual situation you are both in. Moreover, respecting above all, the needs of the other, even if these involve being silent. Joan founds this aspect extremely challenging because of her natural tendency and drive to inform the other about every piece of knowledge she has. Nonetheless, she says that time and practise has helped her become more patient, and a better listener.

What satisfaction does she get from her job?

She takes out satisfaction from seeing people getting better. That is, of witnessing the change/transition they undergo from being at their worst, to finally regain a desire for life. In addition, she also expressed her surprise when she realised that people did not forget her. Even now, there are times when people stop her in the streets to express their recognition and the memories they hold of their shared experiences. Likewise, there are times when they approach her to thank her for the role she had played in their life when they were going through a vulnerable phase.

In addition, Joan said that her experiences have not only rendered benefits to the people she had assisted, but also to herself. With each new work and project she engaged in, she got to discover and gain further understanding of who she is as a person.

Thoughts on Future Job Opportunities

She believes positions involving counselling will become increasingly important in the future considering the global increase of people suffering from mental or emotional distress. To support her opinion, she told me that the demand for Student Services in the University had risen a 71% only on the second Semester.

“People may forget your words, your name, your face, but not the

feelings you created in them” - Quote from Joan Muszynski citing

the words of her mentor