Conference in Louisville

I realize I have been gone for a long time! But my life is finally back to normal so I’m happy to update you on the recent happenings. I was in Louisville, Kentucky for five days to attend the American College Personnel Association conference. It’s an annual conference that hosts anywhere between 2500-3000 professionals working in the areas of student affairs, student development, or student services (they virtually all mean the same thing but each school labels it differently).

Many of the graduate students and full-time professionals from my school attended, but I really tried my best to network with individuals who were connected to professionals in Houston, Texas. I’ve met several wonderful people who were generous with their feedback regarding job search and introducing additional professionals to me. I attended a few sessions about technology, students’ career/academic advising, and job searching techniques which all found to be incredibly informative. Being an introvert, who needs frequent “private moments” throughout the day, is never an easy personality to have in such a massive conference like this, but I certainly did a better job putting on my “networking” face whenever it was necessary.

My absolutely favorite out of all was to hear Lisa Ling speak as our closing session guest, where she brought several international/domestic issues back to life. There are not that many public Asian female figures to that I look up to just yet, so it was great to witness the eloquence of her speaking.

Another great thing about this conference was the opportunity to meet my friend Jess, whom I have known through Z’s tenure with Teach for America. She took me outside of the downtown area for a nice international-cuisine restaurant. It was great seeing her again and catching up with her life as a medical student.

I discovered Louisville as a lovely, beautiful city filled with many kind people. The last day of my stay, the cab driver took me and my friend Allie for a brief tour to the old town Louisville on our way to the airport at the same rate. Talk about friendly people!