Arielle Santos
Humanities Academic Services Center
Academic Counselor/Advising Lead
What do you find most fulfilling or rewarding about your job?
This is a very cheesy answer, but I mean this so wholeheartedly but genuinely connecting with students and being a consistent person of support during their time at UW. The four or so years you spend here can go by so quickly and each quarter you have a new set of classes with a different mix of students and new faculty, however, our center gets to be a home base no matter what. I try my best to not make my appointments feel transactional because I care about who students are as people outside of just their identity as a UW student. The little things like a quick update on your dog is doing back home or big wins like the new internship you got just fill me with joy. I feel very honored that students get to share their experiences with me.
What are the specifics of your job and how can students get in contact with you?
This one is hard to answer because there’s a lot of parts to the job that I feel like go unseen. The best way I can sum it up is that we are truly here to support students in any aspect that we can. Our center deals with all the humanities departments which is a total of 12 so that’s indeed a lot of things to be familiar with but what helps is always centering ourselves and going back to the idea of what will support students? Therefore, a large part of my job is one on one student advising so students will meet with me for degree planning, exploring, or asking questions about majors, graduation applications, academic support etc. But because we have so many departments that we support we also serve as liaisons for specific departments so departments can get more direct support for their own students. For example, I’m the liaison for Cinema & Media Studies and the Linguistics department so I’m consistently looking at registration trends, course information, and new opportunities for students within those departments. However, I can meet with students with majors from any of the 12 Humanities departments! All the H.A.S. advisers are jacks of all trades honestly. The best way to get in contact with us would be via email because sometimes our appointment schedules fill up quickly during the academic year. You can also pop by during our scheduled drop-in times when it’s really busy. But when you can or if you feel any inkling to speak to someone, schedule an appointment! We love, love, love meeting with students. It’s the bread and butter of our work. Also, feel free to meet with any adviser that you feel comfortable with. We don’t do an assigned advising model in our center so students can choose who they meet with for student support.
I know you work with countless amounts of students, what helps you stay organized? What helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed?
I wasn’t always this way when I was a student but as an adult, I’ve really become an “if it’s not done two days before then it’s late” person. This means that I always try to be ahead of my emails and my appointment requests. Every morning I will see what’s coming for the week and go through every student who has booked appointments with me thus far and go over their DARS audits and previous adviser notes to see how I best support them. In a way, I also try play psychic and try to predict what follow up questions the students might have. I also live and die by my planner and calendar. Feeling overly prepared helps keep my workload and my mental capacity in check. However! I wasn’t always like this; I was always a serial procrastinator and would wait until the last minute to do everything. It wasn’t until I really understood the pressures of the responsibilities of a job through even just part time retail work that I learned how to get myself together. Sometimes you just have to learn through your mess-ups.
I read in your bio that you used to work with middle school students. Obviously, there is a big age difference in the students you now work with but I’m curious if you’ve found any similarities in the students you have advised over the years?
Haha, if I’m being totally honest, there’s a ton of similarities between middle school and college students. I was a middle school English teacher for 7 years and middle school, as I’m sure many people remember, is such a period of transition and trying to figure out your identity. In a way, college is like that too. Except you have more agency and freedom in how your day looks. I feel like many students, they are trying to figure out who they are as a person and what they want to be come after they graduate when they’re in college. It’s not as bad as being in the early days of puberty! However, it can feel just as messy and sometimes you just need help, and you don’t know how to ask for it. In that way, I’ve found some of my student experiences to be like those that I had as a middle school teacher. We’re all just figuring it out!
Have you always had a strong desire to help others and how did you discover that you wanted to go into academic advising?
I was always very driven to be a teacher specifically. I just wanted to teach students so badly, so I really streamlined my education and job experience to prep me for that and I began my career as a teacher earlier than normal. I loved teaching so much and I’m so happy about the work I got to do because of my career. However, it came to a point where I realized that I didn’t think my heart was in it anymore. I want to share that because it’s important that folks know that no matter how old you are and no matter what you do, you can choose to change paths.
I wanted to continue to work with young people and my favorite part of teaching was just the connection and the support I could give students. I originally thought about going back to graduate school to be a mental health counselor, however, it just wasn’t realistic with my finances especially when I already held a master’s degree. So, I had to research other careers within education and this whole process took me about two years to really understand what academic advising was specifically. I met with a lot of people who had worked in higher ed student services to see if this was right for me and the more, I discussed and did my research the more I understand that this was something I could transfer my teaching skills to. It was also the perfect combination of teaching and the work of a mental health counselor. Because in a way, advisers are kind of teachers and traditional counselors in the way we support students. We just get to do it without having to take attendance and give you homework, haha.
I also read in your bio that you really enjoy reading, are there any books you want to recommend to students?
Oooo I love this question! I will always recommend Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. It’s one of my favorite memoirs and it’s written by the lead singer of my favorite band Japanese Breakfast. It details her experience as a Korean American and her processing the death of her mother. It’s a tearjerker but truly one of the best books I’ve ever read.
I also really love reading horror and mystery novels and I’ve been making my way through Stephen King. If you’re someone who has been curious about Stephen King or just want to mentally escape, I highly recommend ‘Salem’s Lot. I know a lot of people will say It or The Shining. But ‘Salem’s Lot is so fun. There are vampires, an old rickety house, and a rag tag group of dudes trying to save the town. It feels like an adventure and kind of makes you feel like a kid reading again! The guy who directed the Annabelle movies is also releasing a movie adaptation soon…so I hope it does the book justice.