Mid-OPE Check-In

If you happen to follow me on Twitter, you probably noticed the large influx of tweets about OPE since yesterday. OPE is definitely one of those Student Affairs gatherings where you just put yourself out there and say hi to complete strangers, which can include electronic means.

I will keep this short, since it's getting late and tomorrow will be another long day, but I wanted to say that today was quite fun overall. It was definitely a different experience being an interviewer, but I guess I didn't realize how exactly that would be until actually doing it. Of course, since I'm helping look for people to join the team here, I have a very focused mindset on who's going to be good in which building and how the team dynamic will play out. This, of course, is much different from seeing if I fit in with 10-15 different school cultures and housing departments.

To maintain confidentiality, I can't share too many specifics about the interviews, but I feel like I can say that the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones were everyone was making jokes and laughing a lot. As a candidate, humor really put me at ease and let me open up a little more, so I'm glad I could provide that to some of the people in that hot seat.

I'm excited for tomorrow since I get to interview more candidates, although the schedule feels a little less like a marathon. Also, tomorrow night is the big social! It'll probably feel weird to be an interviewer for the first time because candidates make a point to connect with all the schools they interviewed with (or at least the ones they felt a good connection with) at the social. Plus, as a candidate you are told to dress professionally and without any school-specific apparel. However, as an interviewer, everyone from my school will be wearing our department polos so we can have that solidarity amidst the massive sea of people. Plus, the food! There is so much good food and since I'll be going as an interviewer, I can enjoy the food without feeling crazy nervous the whole time.

In short, things are going quite well and despite some hiccups, it's giving me a really good perspective about the interview process (both in general and student affairs in particular).

Ha! My holiday plans worked! Today just happens to be Read Me Day and I wrote today's blog partly to celebrate the importance of reading! So, hooray for celebrating!

DFTBA