Author Kathy Fisher sports her Hoosier pride during an IU tailgate (right) with good friend and classmate, Kyla King.

A career in Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) isn’t something most people are aware of until they’re in a higher education setting.

As an undergrad, I was extremely involved in student activities and loved working with younger students to help them prepare for their future by developing their leadership skills. When graduation came, my mentors encouraged me to go on for my master’s, and ultimately a career, in HESA; however, the threat of out-of-state loans, combined with the fear that I might just be pursuing the degree because I loved college so much, pushed me headfirst into the corporate world of advertising sales.

Flash forward seven years: I moved from the D.C. area to Bloomington, Indiana and found myself in the town of a top 10 HESA graduate program, married to a future professor and still harboring a nagging desire to get back on campus working with students. My experience as an advertising account executive was exciting and fast-paced, and with hard work, opportunity was endless; nonetheless, I couldn’t get HESA out of my mind.

I was also aware that the skills that allowed me to excel at my job were the very same ones I had gained from student affairs involvement. In addition, what I really loved about my job was working with people and creating solutions – all of which transferred easily into higher education administration and student affairs. The decision was clear: it was time to trade in my heels, business cards and expensive lunches for Indiana University gear, late-night pizza study parties and a backpack weighed down with books and a laptop.

Grad students are held to a much higher standard, C’s no longer get degrees: anything below a B is failing.

The transition has been nerve-wracking and exciting all at the same time. The hours are different: as a full-time professional, I worked nine to five, Monday through Friday. As a full-time student, I work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A typical day for me is different, too. I’m surprised at how much Outlook and my iPhone rule my life with their constant reminders of where, when I need to be somewhere and what I need to be doing. My experience as an account executive has helped me juggle my constantly growing to-do list, group project meetings, student organization meetings, work, class and the occasional playtime.

Graduate school, to no surprise, is much harder than undergrad. I expected this, but didn’t account for the fact that my ability to read hundreds of pages in a night had somehow seemed to disappear, and that writing an issue paper in APA format is much more frustrating than putting together a PowerPoint presentation or responding to a client’s “Request for Proposal.” Grad students are held to a much higher standard, C’s no longer get degrees: anything below a B is failing.

The constant challenge of developing my reading and writing skills while juggling assignments and meetings can be warring, but I’ve never felt more confident that I made the right decision. The feeling I get when I witness a student succeed academically or personally, and knowing that I had something to do with that, is incomparable to any sales pitch win I ever had. I become more passionate about the importance of higher education and the out-of-classroom learning that occurs every time I see a theory that I’ve learned about in class play out in a student’s life.

I love what I’m learning to do. This, along with the camaraderie of my great classmates who revel along with me in our sacrifice of sleep and social life, are what get me through the tough times and encourage me throughout this journey called graduate school.

To quote the soccer great Pele, “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”

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