By Mike Kilen
GCU Information Workplace

College students can face internship curve balls, and this yr there have been quite a lot of nasty ones.

Amanda Sullivan She ended up in a resort room as a result of her Fort Price, Texas house was with out energy, but she took the lead.

The Grand Canyon College Faculty Counseling Masters scholar referred to as households of scholars at Tanglewood Elementary Faculty after the February winter storm in Texas that brought on the lack of electrical energy in hundreds of thousands of individuals and to do with out water resulting from frozen pipes.

“I’ve helped attain out to each single mother or father. We requested them in the event that they had been okay and in the event that they wanted entry to water as a result of Texas offered it, ”she mentioned. “They had been so grateful that the counseling service referred to as, and it warmed my coronary heart to succeed in out to those dad and mom.”

It additionally allayed the issues of the kids.

“A number of them mentioned it was scary and so they needed to go to relations and did not have water,” she mentioned. “I advised them it was okay to have these emotions, and so long as they had been with their households, they had been protected.”

Lindsey Castro, the college counselor, mentioned Sullivan saved the day.

“I am so fundamental with expertise, so I despatched her an inventory of everybody we would have liked to name, and he or she circled and despatched again a pleasant Excel spreadsheet,” Castro mentioned. “I want I had extra of her in my life.”

It was not the primary time that she intervened.

Castro’s 10-month-old baby contracted COVID-19 and he or she was absent for a part of the semester. Sullivan seamlessly took over a few of her counseling duties whereas doing her full-time job as a kindergarten instructor in class and learning for her masters.

It was not a straightforward job with college students and academics resulting from COVID-19 exposures as some realized in individual and others on-line. At some point, she solely had three college students in her class. His educating types have needed to change to fulfill digital calls for whereas serving those that attend college and managing the issues of a college counselor.

“I assumed carrying a masks could be tough for them, however they resisted all of it,” Sullivan mentioned of the scholars. “I’m impressed that the scholars have made it part of on a regular basis life. And even after they returned after the colleges closed, they returned with the identical enthusiasm for studying.

“As a future college counselor, I hope to assist them preserve the identical enthusiasm for studying.”

This was not the primary time graduate counseling college students had gone the additional mile up to now yr. Dr Kimberly Grigg, Co-chair of GCU’s Faculty Counseling Program, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, final summer season described in GCU In the present day a number of examples of scholars who served meals or helped their faculties and communities in the course of the tough yr of COVID.

Sullivan mentioned GCU had additionally helped her relieve tough occasions, which included private points.

“As a result of it is a Christian college, we will share spiritually, and it actually helped me preserve my religion robust,” she mentioned. “It is good to learn a Bible verse that’s displayed for the category and discuss how our faith helps us get by means of.”

Sullivan has quite a lot of expertise in coping with the curves of life. She delayed her school training till the age of 30 to boost two kids earlier than learning for an undergraduate diploma on the College of Texas Permian Basin, driving an hour every approach avoiding tumbleweeds on the roads. West Texas roads.

She then turned a counselor for male inmates, which allowed her to make an actual distinction in somebody’s life, earlier than working in an early childhood intervention company. This led to her educating and he or she is in her third yr at Tanglewood.

The varsity is near a way of normalcy and Sullivan is decreased to a digital classroom, however she seems to be ahead to sooner or later combining her educating and counseling expertise to proceed to make a distinction.

“She’s only a pretty individual. She affords to assist at any time of the day, though she is aware of it would add yet one more factor to her plate, ”mentioned Castro. “She desires to be there to assist the scholars and assist the group and her workforce.”

Sullivan’s GCU internship offered worthwhile expertise.

“It ready me for a future disaster in a college and the way counselors play a job within the well-being of academics and college students and ensuring the group is wholesome,” he mentioned. she declared.

When life’s storms strike, Sullivan desires everybody to know, “A counselor is at all times accessible.”

Mike Kilen, editor-in-chief of Grand Canyon College, may be reached at [email protected] or at 602-639-6764

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