My journey at Loyola University Chicago has been a very tumultuous,

challenging, and powerful one. I started my journey at Loyola back in 2012 and three

years ago I thought my future was well cemented and I was able to see the trajectory of

my career. Unfortunately, that journey was derailed when I had to drop out due to some

family circumstances and at the time it shattered my dreams of working in higher

education. During that trying time I took time for myself to reflect on my experience and

focus my attention on my family and how I could support them in that moment. After

taking time to work full-time and grow as an individual I knew that I had to focus on my

bliss and what made me happy and that really was taking the time to note that going to

school was the best option for me. After helping my family bounce back financially I

knew it was time to focus on myself and that is exactly what I did. I was lucky enough to

get my assistantship back and focus on school.

As I transitioned back into the program it was a struggle adjusting to getting back

into academia, my assistantship and my relationship with others. The biggest struggle

was my assistantship in that I had never worked in Residence Life and the learning curve

was a large one, especially since I was the only one out of my peers to have never been

exposed to it as an undergraduate student. The first few months were challenging in that

I had to make sure to learn not only to be an effective supervisor, but role model for my

students while maintaining my professional identity. This was definitely a challenge and

something that I had to continually develop throughout my time at Loyola. With the help

of my supervisors and mentors I was better equipped to handle those interactions and felt

as though it was a continual process to get better.

In my assistantship I believe I was given the opportunity to thrive and seek out

supplemental experiences as long as I was able to balance everything that I wanted to

accomplish. This was a struggle as well. More often than not there would be

opportunities in which I felt I wanted to engage in, but was not able to balance my

existing priorities. This is when I had to take the time to prioritize what I wanted to gain

in my Loyola experience.

I knew that I wanted to try and be more involved with social justice initiatives in

how that played a role in the work that I do with students. Coming from my

undergraduate institution there was not really much emphasis on social justice. I left

those four years feeling unsatisfied. I did not have the proper background knowledge to

fully understand what social justice was and how it informs the work that I do. While in

this program I was challenged very much in thinking about the interactions that I have

and my role in the world. I learned that social justice impacts everyone even if some

people do not believe it.

I started to think about the privileges that I hold as an individual and then think

about how there are so many other individuals that are less fortunate than I and on the

contrary individuals that are much more privileged than I. Once I realized this though I

fell into the trap of looking through an “Oppression Olympics” and that is when I had to

stop. I had to stop to think that by playing this game nothing was going to change. I had

to change my frame of thought and think to myself how I could be proactive in

developing change within these systems. I have never been to an institution in which

social justice is paramount in how we speak to one another and look at the world. I think

my biggest challenge with social justice has been how to apply what I’ve learned in the

classroom to the interactions I have with my students. This becomes prevalent when I

speak to my students about social justice issues and they either do not care or they feel as

though those issues do not directly affect them. It is really difficult to sit with students

and see them not care. This is when I learned to step back and analyze that might not be

that reason it just might mean that developmentally they are not at a place to fully

comprehend what is happening or have not been directly affected by some sort of

injustice.

Knowing this the biggest thing about social justice is to make sure to never get

complacent to continually find ways in which to bring it up in conversation or even in

programming. There are a lot of theories and jargon that I picked up about social justice,

but the main thing that I learned is that one must not stay complacent. We do not live in a

socially just world and that might not ever be the case, but as educators we do have direct

impact with young college students so they can also hopefully be agents of change in the

future. I learned that social justice is a daily struggle and that in my work I just need to be

intentional in having those hard conversations with colleagues and students in order to

learn and move forward.

The biggest thing that I have learned in my time at Loyola is to be resilient. My

journey was a difficult and exhausting one, but now that I finally have come to the finish

line I know that it was all worth it. I’m incredibly excited to take everything that I’ve

learned here as an academic and as person and apply it in my professional career moving

forward.