Dottie Dothard

Job: Black Graduate Experience Living Learning Community (BGELLC), Community Liaison, Graduate and Family Housing

Describe the impact that student employment has had on your overall college experience.

The opportunity to work with all the amazing staff at UC San Diego. My role as BGELLC CL provided a structure where I always had a supervisor who was very invested in my progress and saw potential in me, so she was patient with my learning process and she encouraged me to be more patient and kind with myself. Because of the BGELLC's Advisory Board structure, I was also able to spend time with staff who were so passionate about DEI work that they volunteered extra time and energy to maintain the original mission of the BGELLC space. Overall, I got to make an impact in a community I care about and did so with the support of incredible UC San Diego staff.

What skills and/or competencies have you developed in your student employment job that you were able to capture on your resume?

Time management, teamwork and project management.

What tips or advice do you have to share with other students on how to get the most out of their student employment experience?

Try to really focus on the prompt you're given. For example, though I saw so many opportunities for me to help build infrastructure, ultimately my task was involved in giving the residents and the larger community opportunities to spend time together and build each other up, as well as connecting them to resources both on and off campus.

How might you apply your student employment experience and the skills gained during your time at UC San Diego to your professional career?

My time being BGELLC CL gave me a chance to really improve my teamwork skills. I focused on learning "step up, step back" technique and focused on what was needed most for the project while maintaining boundaries appropriate for my mental health.