Transcript - EP9. Liz Carrel
Podcast: One Thing - New Professional
Release Date: January 30, 2023
Episode Title: 09. Liz Carrel
Summary: Host Stuart Brown chats with Liz Carrel, Residential Experience Coordinator for Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts.
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
Stuart Brown: Welcome to the Student Affairs One thing - New Professional, a podcast that asks a simple question of new professionals in the field - what is one thing you've learned you feel will help you as you move forward in your career. I'm your host Stuart Brown, the developer of StudentAffairs.com, one of the most accessed websites by student affairs professionals. On our pages we have the most cost effective job posting board listing hundreds of open student services positions and a wide row of webinars.
On today's episode, I am very pleased to have Liz Carrel a Residential Experience Coordinator at the Arkansas School of Mathematics, Science and the Arts. Welcome to the program, Liz.
Liz Carrel: Thank you for having me Stuart. Thank you so much.
Stuart Brown: So Liz, what is your one thing?
Liz Carrel: If I can backtrack for a second. I know we all have like a pre-pandemic story. So before I got into student affairs for the pandemic, I worked the last seven or eight years for Disney cruise lines. So when the pandemic happened it kind of like was just such a segue way because I didn't really know what was the next step. And then, you know, what career to choose obviously because everything was on hold. So I was like let me start applying for different positions and different job opportunities. And I feel like that one thing that kind of helped me through that time of that lockdown of trying to like find what career, what passion and what that one passion I wanted to do with the next step kind of segue wayed and kind of found myself in residential life, student affairs and found that a lot of things were in common of what I had in the hospitality industry. But the one thing definitely that kind of kept me throughout that whole time of kind of being sane and grounded and just being optimistic for me, was staying on the script for like, daily affirmation for anything that you're going through, like, challenges, especially some hard times, just staying on the script. I was able to stay on the script and for me at that time, what I knew and what I learned from a previous career in the cruise line industry, hospitality. Okay, let's utilize those skills and try to put it into another career that maybe share similar skills, which I found was residential life.
Stuart Brown: When you talk about staying on the script are you saying more, this is the direction I'm going now and to follow through and push aside maybe distractions or are there things where you might be tempted to change direction?
Liz Carrel: Just staying on that one direction. Yeah, I would actually agree. Like, you know, staying on script staying on one direction. The one, like, decision. Okay, I made my decision, I made my choice on this. Let's stick on that. Let's keep all the other distractions that are, you know, maybe outside sources or external factors that maybe are influencing that decision in that direction. So for me, was staying focused at that time because I wanted to take all different directions like, no, let's stick with one path, and let's see how this turns out first, and then if this doesn't work out, then maybe we can go another direction.
Stuart Brown: I think that sounds like something where it probably gave you peace of mind. To say once you had that idea, as opposed to trying to flit from one thing to another.
Liz Carrel: I didn't want to try like three or four things. For me, I'm always committed. Every career I've had, this is probably the third job I've had in my whole entire life. I like to keep loyal, So I was like, okay, I want to find something I like to do next, but I'm gonna do for the long run, obviously the cruise line industry was great to settle for that foundation of me, now being in student affairs, I was like, and I kind of always wanted to get back into higher education. So for me that was like, kind of one thing is I wanted to stay loyal to the next. For me, I feel like it's always a longevity issue, because I want to keep moving careers or moving paths, like, I want to keep staying on one passion I like. And just reminding myself, and what is that passion? What is that one thing that I care about and its students and so that's how I kind of got back into student affairs was like, I really missed working with students.
Stuart Brown: What I think is important for people listening, especially young professionals, is that, in a sense, it's okay to have loyalty and that you want to stay. I think too many times you read about people going from job to job, there's always something better around the bend, but to settle and make do and also make the best of what you have because you could go to the next job and you just might keep looking and keep looking. As opposed to saying this is where I'm at. This is where I'm going to be. I don't have to necessarily be here forever. In the job I just retired from, I was there for 31 years. You don't, you have to do that. But at least you have some track record, especially if you are going to be looking for another job and maybe a search committee is looking through your resume and saying, okay, you know, there was stability.
Liz, I want to thank you for sharing that one thing. I think that's important, especially for people beginning in the field because let's say if you're a grad student and you're looking for jobs and there are so many opportunities, different types of institution sizes, geography and it can be overwhelming. But I think once you feel good about an institution, stick with it and stick with it for, I'm going to say a couple of years at least and then take stock of what you're doing and then decide are you going to move on or not?. I can make more of a home here. I can advance here and I don't have to go somewhere else.
Liz Carrel: Absolutely, you summed it up perfectly. Thank you.
Stuart Brown: You have been listening to Student Affairs One Thing - New Professional, a podcast that asks a simple question of new professionals in the field. What is one thing you have learned you feel will help you as you move forward in your career? My guest today has been Liz Carrel. Residential Experience Coordinator at the Arkansas School of Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts. I'm your host, Stuart Brown, the developer of StudentAffairs.com, one of the most accessed websites by student affairs professionals. I hope you'll join us next time for another episode.
END TRANSCRIPT
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