Exciting. nervous, lost, these are the words that I would use to label my first working experience in WCen. The client was a senior student who is going to apply for a post-graduate program in a pharmacy school. And the consultant was Alex.
It seemed to be a tough beginning for me since both of them spoke really fast in those difficult medical-related terms. I felt that I was doomed. How can I ever do a consultant since I do not understand some of the vocabularies the client use in his or her writing? How can I ever gain my client's trust?
Basically, what I have done during the consultation was sitting, listening and noting down what kinds of questions Alex asked to help the client develop her ideas and organize the paper. It was not easy, but I did learn something from it.
First, talk with the student about her background and why he or she is here, where he or she expect to get from us. This will really help student to talk and rethink about his work, and hopeful be inspired with some new ideas during his own talking. After listening to his ideas, it is very important to show my interest in his ideas and let him be confident and comfortable about what he is doing.
Second, read the paper out, preferably by the client. During the reading, the client may figure out some mistakes since he is taking the reader's perspective to see if the lines make sense.
Third, if there is anything that I think can be improved or there are ideas that might be helpful, I can bring them up by saying "How do you think...." or "How does this sound?"
During the consultation, if there is anything that I want to add, I would let the client keep his notebook at hand so that he can always jog down ideas during our conversation, since the ideas flee very fast.
I did my second shadowing consultation with Jake. I felt better in this consultation, partly because I had got an idea about how things are going here, and partly because the client was a foreign student. I felt less insecure about my English profession problem. Well, it's a problem that I definitely need to overcome ASAP! During the consultation, Jake has done a great job in keeping the focus on the ideas and the whole structure of the paper, rather than minor problems of language an grammar. I was very glad that I participated in the consultation more actively by suggesting some ideas. Although they were not all taken in the final edition, some of them contributed to the revision process. It feels really good to know that your own ideas are valued and helpful to others.
After the client left, Jake talked with me about the consultation and let me do the narrative. My first time, again! But I really appreciate that he let me do it and check it for me. It turned out that I wrote the right thing. Yeah~~~ And Jake agreed to read some of my writing and make some comments on them. I am so grateful for that since I know that writing class is always what I need.
The last shadowing I did today was with Laura. She is so adorable! A sophomore girl came with her draft for a personal essay for her UNIV course. That's the course I do GTA for, so I had a generous idea about what it may be about and what the instructor may expect from the paper. During this consultation, I participated more actively and provided more ideas about what could be added into the paper to relate the personal story to readers. Hearing the client say that my idea was very helpful for her is probably the best thing today! I do love these moments, when students tell you that you may make a difference to them, no matter how tiny the difference is. That's why I choose Adult Learning as my master program at the first place.
