É«ÀÇÉçÇø

Today we meet Brittney O’Connor, Assistant Academic Advisor in the College of Business, and former Recruitment and Development Associate in the College of Business' Center for Professional Development. For the better part of two years, Brittney has helped numerous students with their resumes and cover letters as they prepare for the world outside of the University, along with recruiting businesses in the greater Philadelphia area to network with students and hire them for internships and full-time job opportunities.  Though she just started her position as assistant academic advisor two months ago, she is already meeting with transfer and first year students as they begin their orientation at É«ÀÇÉçÇø. Open, heartwarming and down-right loving, Brittney always finds joy when speaking to students and how to better prepare them for the working world.

Join us as Brittney gives her perspective on her new role:

What was the most difficult part of your previous job?

While working at the College of Business’ Center of Professional Development, I would say the most difficult part is just making sure students know about the resources that they have available to them. We want to ensure that they do visit the office and really utilize us, because career coaching is a great service for them. We handle everything from helping them be more prepared to be professional to showing them how to be a great intern. Sometimes just getting our name out there and letting them know that we’re available is one of the more difficult things we do. However, even in the last two years more and more students are utilizing the tools that we offer so we've definitely improved at reaching the students.

How are you liking your new position as Assistant Academic Advisor so far?

I love it! We have a really great team of advisors here. We all collaborate really well. Even when I was downstairs in the Center, I could tell that everyone here worked really well together and I really love that. The culture here, too, is amazing! Everyone here just wants the students to have really great opportunities, and to make sure that they’re prepared and ready for the working world.

Are you nervous about your new position?

Not really, no. I mean, this is what I went to school for. I got my master's in higher education and student affairs, so I’ve always worked with large groups of students and I really enjoy that. I’m a pretty extroverted person and I don’t mind being in a big group. When I was downstairs at the Center, I helped run weekly workshops and big events. We would do, what we call, “industry nights” where we would bring employers in from really great companies, and they would basically network with our group of students. Participants were able to talk with them about anything from careers in management to careers in finance. Being able to kick off all those types of events gave me great experience for my new position as assistant academic advisor.

Who exactly will you be advising?

I will be advising the incoming freshman for the College of Business. We’re really excited because, not only will we be advising them one-on-one, but we are going to start building some programs for them. The biggest thing for us is to, not only let our freshman know that they can come in and meet with us, but we also want to empower them to "do it on their own." We strive to teach students how to book an appointment with us on StarFish, how to contact us, and how to use Banner and register for classes.

We want to give these incoming students a better understanding of all that's available to them, so we plan on holding some workshops to better educate them on our services, as well as better prepare them for upcoming events and internships. Students sometimes have no idea that these opportunities are available! Especially if they come from families that don’t have experience in higher education. We’re seeing now that we have a lot of first generation and non-traditional students who are new to the college experience. We work especially close with them to educate them. In general, there's a lot of information for freshman to absorb and we do our best to help them actually take in what we have to offer and apply it. Hopefully by sophomore year, they’ll be ready for the opportunities that are coming their way, and what it really means to be a business student here at É«ÀÇÉçÇø.

Do you partner up with Flying First, the First Generation Task Force?

My supervisor, Amy Ruymann, is actually the co-chair of Flying First and I told her that I definitely want to be involved with it in some way. I don’t consider myself as “First Gen”, but my father didn’t go to college until after I was born. It took him ten years to finish because he was going part-time while he was working. So I kind of understand it can be a struggle, especially if your parents don’t even know the basics. It’s something that’s close to my heart and I’ve always enjoyed working with students who are taking that first step for their families.

Do you have any data that you're basing your decisions on when implementing some of the advising workshops you spoke about earlier?

As of right now we don’t, but in the Fall we’re going to start sending out feedback surveys to make sure we continuously have the data to back up what we're doing.

What is something unique about yourself that you think will help students in your new role?

Everyone has their own strengths in something, and I think mine is the career piece from when I was working downstairs in the Center. A lot of the students I already know because of the events we participated in. So I think I’ll be able to bring that piece in to help students succeed.