Ep. 21 - Should I Be Doing Something During Winter Break?

Welcome to Episode 21 of the CSUSB Advising Podcast! Now that the fall 2021 semester has completed, what reminders and deadlines are coming up? Also, should you being anything during the winter break or just relax? We interview Academic Success Coordinator Ellie Gault from Advising and Academic Services just that and also get to know Ellie's path into higher education!

In this episode, we have:

• Ellie Gault - Academic Success Coordinator

Follow us on social media:

• Instagram & Tik Tok - @csusbadvising
• Facebook - CSUSB Advising and Academic Services
• Twitter - @csusb_advising

Subscribe to the CSUSB Advising Podcast on Apple, Spotify, and more!

Follow us on social media:

Instagram - @csusbadvising
Tik Tok - @csusbadvising
YouTube - @csusbadvising

https://csusbadvising.buzzsprout.com/

Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey Yoties, welcome back to the CSUSB Advising Podcast. It's me, Matt Markin from advising and academic services. It's been a while I've missed you. In our last episode, we were talking about getting ready for the spring 2022, semester, and clearing holds, seeing your advisor and getting registered. It's now after finals for the fall semester, and I hope you did well and passed all your classes. I also hope you enjoyed the fall semester, especially if you were able to actually have some of your classes on campus. I know for me, it's great being back and actually seeing students and staff and faculty on campus again, although the one thing I didn't enjoy was the long lines at Starbucks. I guess nothing changes there. We all want our coffee, but it's all right for fall semester grades, they are available either now or at least by December 16, and now that it's after finals, December 13 represents the late registration period. I hope you were able to register before the 13th, but you can still make changes to your schedule through your mike howdy account all the way through the first week of the spring semester, which starts January 24 for regular classes, and if you're taking a class during the winter, intercession classes begin December 17 and ends January 19. So I got a special guest for you today, and that is my dear friend and academic success coordinator Ellie Gault, also from Advising and Academic Services. Ellie has worked at CSUSB for a number of years, working not only in advising, but also in the Office of the Registrar, and for a time at Cal State Channel Islands. Ellie is a wealth of knowledge, and I think Ellie's story can really connect with you. So Ellie, welcome to the podcast.

Ellie Gault  
Thank you, Matt. I'm super excited to be here, and it really is an honor to be on one of Matt's podcast. So this is exciting, and hello to all of our yodi and I share Matt sentiments that I hope the term went well for you, and that we are so happy to see you guys back on campus. It really, it really is nice, and I have not ventured the Starbucks line that sounds like it was a good idea. 

Matt Markin  
And if any of you catch this, the video version of this on YouTube. Let me just change the visual on here. I had it on a different podcast, so now we have it on the correct one. So Ellie, I like to start out with, what do you do within advising and academic services?

Ellie Gault  
Sure, so part of my role is, or the two main things I would say in my role is that I work with our orientation office, and they handle more so the logistical and kind of background pieces for advising for all of our orientations, both transfer and first year, first year freshman, that is so we currently do orientation twice a year, both now in spring and for the fall term. So that's a big part of what I do. I also oversee our academic probate probation program. So that might sound a little scary to some and a little bit like, oh wow. Like, who wants to do that? But you know, I think that as serving our students who are on academic probation as well as our first year. Freshmen are undeclared, our pledge students. It's really, it's really, actually, it sounds odd, but a fun population to work with, because we really get to be there for those students. Because what we know is it's not ability, and it's often circumstances that you all are dealing with that puts you into a position of having some challenges. So those are the two main things that I do, and then I get to, I get to meet with all kinds of students, and it's really exciting.

Matt Markin  
So in a way, it's almost like our office. We get to meet with, almost, probably, at some point, every single student on campus. Yes, absolutely. And for you, like, what was your path getting into higher ed and into academic advising?

Ellie Gault  
Well, I will try not to be too long winded, but I when I was in college, I decided I wanted to work in a higher ed I actually wanted to really work in student life. I was very involved in student life. When I was in college, I worked for my sorority after college, and so my natural path was I'm going to go work in student life, and that's what I'll do, and it'll be very exciting. So when I started out on this path, and I think that this is going to speak to some of you who either graduating soon and just graduated or graduated a couple years. So once I was done with that one year position. After I graduated with my sorority, I started to apply to schools to work in Student Life, and it was not working out. I was not getting interviews, I was I was I was just not getting anywhere. So then I just said, okay, just really want to work in higher ed, whatever that means. And so then I went that direction. And the very first interview I got was here at Cal State, San Bernardino. And I got that job, and it was in admissions, and which is actually how I met Matt the first time that so I got that job in admissions. And honestly, from there, I really, I. Just kept being open to opportunity and taking opportunity when I saw it and so started out in admissions, Matt mentioned I briefly, or not briefly, I worked out for a couple years at Cal State. I feel like it was a brief stint in my time, because I always say, I hope it doesn't look this way, but I've been in the CSU system for about 20 years, pretty much all of it here at Cal State, San Bernardino, but so started my career here in the admissions office, left went to Channel Islands. Really enjoyed that experience, and then decided to come back to our area, and had the opportunity to work in the Office of the Registrar here at Cal State. And then the next opportunity came up. And that next opportunity happened to be with the jack H Brown College of Business and Public Administration as an academic advisor. And then seven years later, this opportunity came up. So you know, really, it started with this idea of, I want to work in student life, and I want to work in higher education. I then had to change that to I just want to work in higher education. And I will say, as much as I love student life, and those who know me and those who hear me talk about the experience of college, you will hear me say, Go get involved, whatever that means for you. And I do feel very passionate about that, but I think the stars aligned correctly, and I think it worked out the way it was supposed to, um, so that's how it started, and that's how I ended up here. And it's been a wonderful, wonderful journey.

Matt Markin  
That's awesome. And then kind of going talking about education, like you have earned your both your bachelor's and master's degrees, and I always think it's, it's nice to know like, for for listeners, what were those specific programs that you pursued, and why did you pursue it? 

Ellie Gault  
So I am one of, I am the only person, I think, in our office right now that did not graduate from Cal State San Bernardino. That's always kind of the office joke, though I feel like I am very much a yody, having spent so much of my my my time here because I started, I started here when I was relatively young, so I really very much feel like I am a yodi. But um, so when I went to college, I went to Sonoma State, and I started in what is their version of a Liberal Studies program, and after the first two years, I had decided I did not want to become a teacher. And I have two older sisters, so I called one of them, who went to a different university, and just said, I don't know what to do with myself. I want to graduate in four years. And she said, go become a sociology major. You'll like it. You'll graduate in four years now, how my sister ever knew I graduated in four years? I don't know she, she, she didn't. She wasn't an academic advisor. She was just a student at her school that sociology was her major. And I guess, given that we're siblings, she knew I'd like it. So that's what I did. And I, you know, again, my my path was I'm going to work in higher ed. So at the time, I was more so focused on picking a major that would get me out in the time frame that I wanted. And I wanted that time frame because I knew the first thing I wanted to do after college was Go and take this one year position with my sorority. So that's how I ended up in sociology. And then I do have a Master's, as Matt knows, that was a long journey getting there. So it was I graduated in 2000 from my undergraduate degree, and I did a program at San Diego State in the 2019, 2020, academic year as a Masters of Arts and educational counseling. So it was about a 20 year, 19 year difference between or time between my undergraduate and my graduate. So for me, I took I took that time because my focus was just other places. So my focus was, you know, getting my feet on the ground here in my career here, and the opportunities continue to come, despite not having the Masters, but it was also really important to me that I did a master's that mattered to me, and I didn't do a master's to do a master's, and that was very important to me. The other piece of it was, and this is just being real raw, is I'm terrified of school. I might work at a university. I love higher ed. I think that, you know, higher ed is a great place to go, and it's a great place to be a student. I encourage people to do that. But if you tell me to go take a class and go write a paper, that's really scary to me, taking a test is really scary to me all these years later, it's really scary to me. And so honestly, it just wasn't confident. And. It's an insecurity of mine, and so that's part of why it took me so long to be willing to do it. It was really the encouragement of my friends like Matt here and others here my family that said, you know, like, go do it. So I think a big part of it for me was I wanted to do it in something that I cared about, and not just something. And for me, I think it just took a while to really know what that was going to be. But once I finally did it, it was also partially to see, could I do it? Could I actually get through this, this thing? And I did, I don't know. I'm I'm not any more confident in school, I would still be a little afraid if you told me you go take a test or go write a paper, but I did it, and a big reason was so that I could prove to myself, like, No, you can do this too.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and I think a lot of students probably can relate to this. And if anything, it's just knowing that we're students listening. We're all human and even now, yes, me too. If it's like, go take this test. Do I need to like, what I need to study for? How do I prep for it? Yeah, it takes time. And and you kind of through your story, you're kind of answering in terms of like, I think students can take from this, like, certain advice in terms of like, Should I do a higher degree after I graduate? You know, why should I do it? But is there any other tips you might have for students that might be unsure, like, do I want to do a master's degree? Should I do it? Can I do it? Any other advice you have for them? 

Ellie Gault  
I mean, I would say there's certain professions you're going to go into the a master's degree. You do need it. Like, it's non negotiable. You need it, but there's lots of professions you can go into where you don't necessarily need it right away. I also feel very strongly that, except for the professions in which like you do need to go get that in order to move forward. I do think students should know that, least for me, in my opinion, many master's degree programs, they're not just about being taught something, and I think that that's a difference that I see in many programs. Is when you're an undergraduate student, you need to participate in your education, but you're more so being taught. And when you're in a graduate program, it's more, in my view, an exchange of ideas. It's an it's a conversation. So yes, you're being taught. Yes, your instructors are bringing knowledge to you, but I think that most of those instructors are also expecting you to engage in that knowledge. And so I think that if you have some experience behind you. I think that's really helpful. I also think a lot of students don't necessarily know what they want to do with their life, right? And that's a another big whole conversation. But you I also don't want a student to necessarily jump into a master's program just because they don't know what they want to do so, I would say, don't rush, unless you're going into a field in which, you know, I have to have this masters or it will make a significant difference to that first step after college. I would say, give yourself some time. Give yourself some time. I know when I worked in the College of Business, I had a lot of students that would say, I want to do my Masters right away, because I want to just keep going. I don't want to get out of the habit of school, and I absolutely understand that. But you also want that program to really do for you what you want it to do for you, and sometimes we don't know. And so I think giving it time when you can is a good idea.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I think that's definitely fantastic advice. So thank you for that. And speaking of giving advice, you know, it's after finals at this point for the fall semester. And you know, our spring semester doesn't start, you know, until towards the latter end of January. So do you do you have any advice on if there's anything, and of course, like, generally speaking, anything students could or should do while they're on their winter break before coming back before the spring semester?

Ellie Gault  
Yeah. I mean, I think absolutely, take time for yourself, take time for your family. Take time to enjoy the holidays. However, that is that you celebrate it in I would say, give yourself that time. But then, you know, maybe, like a week or two before we start school, start to organize your mind and start to start to do whatever you however you organize, right? Like some of us, like, I love a planner. Give me a good planner. I'll buy 10 of them a year. Like, I love planners. I love making this, um, everyone who knows me, I love five different colors of pens on one piece of paper to help me organize. But however it is, you organize, and sometimes, if you're if you're a personality that you're like, I'm I'm not an organized person, there is a way in which you organize. You may just not do it in that traditional way. So start to get your mindset, start to get your mind right about the fact that you're going back to school, because just like Matt and I, if we go on vacation for. Little bit it's like, oh, okay, we gotta go back to work. And okay, so we gotta get geared up to do that. So prep yourself for that. Once you have access to your Canvas, I'm not sure if we're still having Blackboard in spring, to be honest, but whether it's Canvas or Blackboard, whatever the learning management system is that your class work is on. See if your professors posted the syllabus. If they have start to take a look at that. Make sure that you have your books ready. If you are the type of personality or you would like to push yourself to become this way, get that syllabus start to write in your calendar, whether that's your phone, whether that's an actual paper calendar, something on your desktop or your laptop or whatnot. Start to put in those deadline dates, so you can really start to see what's going to be expected of you. If you have an early class or whatnot, maybe start to set your alarm right? So if you like to sleep in and you're like, oh, and I know this is a true thing after a long vacation, right? You're like, gotta get up. I gotta, you know, get dressed. I gotta, you know, maybe start to set your alarm and things like that. So just get your mind and your body kind of in gear for that, but make sure that you, you know, give some time to yourself, that you give some time to your family and friends or whomever it is that's important in your life, and then get yourself geared at mentally, physically, emotionally, maybe financially. You know, if you're like, I go to that Starbucks line a lot like main prep for that too. But yeah, so take time for yourself, but don't wait until your first day of class to kind of put yourself in a school mindset, yeah? 

Matt Markin  
Because we definitely don't want students to get burned out, you know, yeah, so perfect advice with, like, taking time for yourself and just in a way, you just even celebrate the fact that you finished the fall semester, you know, everything that has happened. ,

Ellie Gault  
I absolutely agree with that. And I would say, you know, maybe to add on to that, if you had a great semester. Celebrate it. If you had a tough semester, celebrate it. Because regardless of how you came out of it, you came out of it, you got to the other side of it. And really do celebrate that, because it's not always about what grade you got. Sometimes it's just about the journey of these 15 weeks that got you here. And don't forget that we are here. We are here. So as much as I would love to say, we get an entire month plus off, like you guys do, we don't, but we are very grateful for the time that we do get off. So we are out of the office between basically December 23 or starting December 23 I think if we get our informal time off from the Governor, but we will be back the first business day of January. So I know I've been telling a lot of our students that we're meeting with. Have you come up with something you need to talk about between finals and before we go out on our holiday break or after we come back, but before we start the term, we're here, so use us like we do have plenty of stuff to do at our desk, but our goal is always to help and support you guys. So don't feel like, oh, the school hasn't started, so I can't contact Matt or Ellie. No contact us. We're around.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. And then so there might be some students going, well, that's great, but I'm going to be one taking the winter intersession, and I'm taking a class during the winter, and it's a three week class. What was I thinking? So do you have any advice for students who are like, just getting prepared, or how to balance being on winter break, but maybe also taking this winter intercession course? 

Ellie Gault  
So first, I'll pray for you now, but you know, I would say it's three weeks. It's really, really quick. And so, you know, everyone doing the one on our intercession is doing it for their own particular reasons, but it's still going to be sometimes hard to get yourself in the mindset of these three weeks. So keep remembering it's three weeks. It's just three weeks. The other thing, I would say is, especially depending on your living situation. So we do have the holidays and stuff right now, so maybe make sure that those that are around you, whether it's who you physically live with, or who you spend most of your time with, make sure they understand I am actually taking a course. It's really intense. It's really, really short, so sometimes we might need to say, can you help limit my distractions? Right? So maybe don't ask me to go out every night, or, you know, like, yes, I want to participate in this or that, but, but I can't, because I need to study. So definitely, part is to participate in your regular traditions that that you and your loved ones do to celebrate the holiday, but just also let them know like, hey, this time around this particular break, I may not be as available to do the things that I really, really want to do. But no, I'm in school, so if you see me not doing what I need to do, check up on me. Right? Call me out on it. But also maybe let them know like, hey. Maybe, maybe don't provide so many distractions, but, and then just remember, it's just three weeks. You can do anything for three weeks. You really, really can. It'll go by really quickly.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I like that. You put about like, maybe having that accountability person and be like, you know, keep me in check, make sure I'm doing what I said I was gonna do. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, we've had some students actually graduate mid year. So we had some our fall graduates, which is awesome, and they had to finally have their first in person commencement, post pandemic. Well, like still in, I don't know, weird place that we're Yeah. But any advice that you have for recent graduates as they navigate this world as a, as a, not as an undergraduate anymore. They didn't, they didn't have to register for undergrad classes for spring. Is there anything they could or should be doing?

Ellie Gault  
Well, first, congratulations, right? Absolutely. And I had the pleasure when I was an advisor in college of business to actually help, help coordinate the commencement ceremony on top of the college. I mean, we have a whole office that does it that every college has has people who help with their particular college ceremony. So also know that Be thankful when you're at that ceremony. Be thankful to all those people, because there's a lot of work that goes to putting on those ceremonies and and I will say, I do, I do miss that aspect of my old position to a degree anyway, because it was always such an exciting time of the year. And, you know, I can cry over lots of things because I'm just a crier, but I will say it was always such a special moment at commencement, um, when we would get to that point of, you know, at the very end of throwing the cap and the music, but even before that. And so not just a shout out to our first gen students. I mean, this is a shout out to everybody, but there was always a really special moment where the President would say, you know, stand if you're a first generation student. And I could cry now, because it was just always the most impactful thing to see, like, wow, you all did it, and you didn't necessarily have the example before you, so really relish those moments. It is really exciting, and it is well deserved. So but navigating after you graduate is the weirdest feeling Matt and I have both experienced, and we can both say it is a weird feeling, because our entire lives, from the time we are, you know, about five or six years old until however old you are when you graduate, you're always in school. You're always in school, until all of a sudden, not have that one part, even if you work full time. Now you have, you know, all these other commitments, the fact that school is no longer there. It is kind of a void. You get over it, you get over it, but, but it is a weird. Is weird at first, but I would, I would also just say, reach for your goals. Reach high. But also know we all have to start somewhere, and that doesn't mean to settle, but it also means, like, be realistic about what those next things are that you're going to do. So I think when we graduate, we always have some of us have expectations, and some of us don't, but if you have that expectation of, well, I'm going to go make a six figure income my first year. I hope you do that's amazing, but also know that, like you might have to do some other stuff first, right? So I would just say, Be open. Be open to everything. One of the questions that I cringe when I ask our students this that it just sometimes comes out, and it's the question we've all dealt with our entire college career, right and even beforehand, what are you gonna do with your life? What are you going to do? I mean, when that question starts really early on in our lives, and it's hard to get away from that. But here's what you need to know, whether you're at the very beginning of your journey, here in the middle, or you just graduated, you don't know. You have ideas. Go with those ideas, but life will happen. An opportunity presents itself, and things will happen sometimes that take you off the path you thought you were going to be on. But those aren't always bad things. So just be open. Be as open as possible, even if maybe the next thing presenting itself to you in terms of a career or whatnot doesn't look like the picture in your mind. Just be open to it. And I think that if you are open to those opportunities that come to you, you land where you should. And I think that if you ask a lot of us who are really happy with what we do, and not just here as advisors, because I think we're really lucky in the world of higher education to work with students, because we have the ability to be so impactful. But I think if you talk to a lot of people in your life, and I often give this suggestion, as I'm working with students, if you're not sure what you quote, unquote, what want to do, go talk to the people who seem really happy about what they're doing. I. Yeah, and not so that you can go do what they do, but so you can learn from how did you get there? How did you end up in this position? And I think with a lot of people, you're going to find out that they were just open to opportunity, even if that opportunity looked different than what they thought it was going to be. And I think that many of us and my story is similar to this, though I still ended up in higher education, I thought, no, no, I got to work with student life. That's That's my jam, right? Like, that's where I'm going to be. And I think, like, I'm so thankful that that's not what is not, because it's not great to work in student life. It's fantastic work in student life, but I just really think I ended up where I should be. And I just really think based on my own personal experience and observation, those of us who end up in a career or position in which we're really happy, it didn't always come from when I was born or when I was five, or when I was in junior high, or when I got to college, I knew what I wanted to do. We all know those people that did, and we need those people in the world too, but most of us don't, and you got through these years here you're on your next step. Be open, be flexible, and enjoy the ride. And don't try and plan out your life from now to retirement, from now until you're no longer here, right? To fit, because you can, you can, so, but enjoy the ride as you go.

Matt Markin  
That's perfectly said, you know. And even just in enjoying that journey of the Pro, the whole process, not the end result, but the process of how you got there. But Ellie, this was fascinating, I think a lot of great nuggets of information that students, listeners will be able to get from this, this episode, and from your interview. So thank you so much for being on the podcast. 

Ellie Gault  
Thank you. I so appreciate you, Matt. And just a shout out to Matt. I don't know how many of you yodes know that this is just the, really the coolest thing that we have him doing this. And this is not something every advising office on every campus in the world has. It certainly is not. I mean, I know we're not the only ones, but, but I think that we are very fortunate to have somebody like Matt, and have Matt specifically lead this for us and make this available to you all. So I hope you all appreciate him as much as we do. And so thank you, Matt.

Matt Markin  
Oh, I appreciate that, and I did not pay Ellie to say any of that.

Ellie Gault  
But acknowledgement should go where it should. And so definitely, no, we are very lucky to have Matt Markin on this campus.

Matt Markin  
Oh, thank you so much. And that does it for our last episode of 2021 make sure to subscribe to this podcast and follow us on our social media. That's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok at CSUSB advising. Check back in January for a brand new episode of the CSUSB advising podcast. Happy holidays. Happy New Year, and see you in 2022. Go yotes.