Challenges Of Working In The Education Industry As A President
Jenny's greatest challenge as Admission Masters' President is balancing the need to scale the organization's support for students with the financial limitations inherent in the education sector; this includes combating societal pressures surrounding educational success and navigating "the amount of tests and homework" currently overwhelming students, which becomes "internally my challenge."
Executive/Leadership, Overcoming Challenges, Achieving Goals, Stress Management, Workplace Challenges
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Jenny Wheatley
President
Admission Masters
UCLA (Graduated in 2010)
Johns Hopkins University Masters in Education and Certification in School Leadership
Anthropology, Sociology
Education
Consulting
Pell Grant Recipient, Immigrant, Worked 20+ Hours in School, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Helping students overcome challenges is a core part of the role and these challenges become the President's challenges as well.
2. Scaling the organization to support more students is a major challenge, limited by financial resources and the overall funding and resources available in the education sector.
3. Changing social norms and expectations around educational success is a key challenge; the President works to redefine success beyond traditional metrics like college admissions and GPAs.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
This is actually a hard question, because it would be a lie to say there are no challenges. Part of my job is helping other students overcome their challenges, so their challenges kind of become my challenges, so to speak.
For instance, if I have a student with really bad test anxiety, that challenge is internalized as my own in my role as president. I don't really see too many challenges within my team. I think my team has really internalized their goals and their vision for their work and why they do the job that they do.
If anything, one of the things our organization tries to do is scale. We want to support as many students as possible and provide these types of resources to them. That scalability isn't always achievable, because scalability is directly aligned with financial challenges.
If we're not getting the financial support that we need, we can't scale. We can't hire, we can't train, we can't do things. So that's a big challenge. I think in general in the world of education, there's a lack of funding and a lack of resources. Because of that, scalability and providing these opportunities are a little harder.
Otherwise, challenges are at the minuscule level of day-to-day challenges that my students have. Right now, it's AP exam season, and my students are so overwhelmed with the amount of tests and homework they have to do. That in itself becomes my challenge: how do I navigate this? What can I do to support my students and give them the best resources so they're not feeling so overwhelmed?
Those are the small things. Education tends to be, in some ways, very cutthroat. There's a lot of pressure: you have to get these test scores, this GPA, you have to do this. This type of one definition of what success looks like in education is something I constantly try to change.
I try to help my students understand they don't have to go to a specific college to deem themselves successful. I tell parents the same things. Breaking those social norms and expectations of what it means to be successful is another really big challenge in the world of education itself.
Yeah, I think those are the challenges that I see every day.
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