We recently connected with My-Linh Nguyen and have shared our conversation below.

My-Linh, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

I work as a counselor at a local community college, providing services to students in their educational and career planning. When I think about this question, I think about how Covid has changed our “delivery model” tremendously. At the time of March 2020 when everything shut down, we were still largely functioning in the traditional brick and mortar sense and had only just started to pilot online counseling in small pieces. We literally had to prepare to leave our office that next day, not knowing when we were coming back – but yet still find a way to serve all our students who were in just as much limbo as we were.

I’m so grateful for the support of some key people in our office that pulled together with me to flip that remote services switch on… and fast. Although it was still very “reactive” in a sense that we were building much of the plane as we were flying….. it still felt very seamless that we were still able to serve our students.

It took some time, but due to the extended stay-at-home orders, we were able to make large strides in obtaining new software features, start to build processes and improve the way we served students remotely. It was bittersweet to be honest because without Covid, it would have taken years for us to get to where we are now with our online services. And now that its here… its here to stay.

Covid changed our delivery model, because not only have our counselors become more savvy at providing an equal level of service to our students, but our students’ behaviors have changed. The convenience of receiving counseling services from the comfort of your home, saving on gas just to commute to campus on your day off for a single appointment, the flexibility to schedule an appointment that meets your full-time work schedule… at the end of the day, providing simply the option to choose your counseling appointment location, whether it be online, phone or in-person, is the most equitable way to offer our community college counseling services.

My-Linh, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a San Diego native and product of our local education system (all through to community college, undergraduate and graduate). I have built my career around being a counselor in education. I’ve been a community college counselor locally across various campuses in our county for the past 17-ish years. After working at multiple campuses across the first decade of my career, I ultimately landed at Cuyamaca College and have planted roots there now, since 2015.

I am currently the Department Chair of Counseling at my college, which puts me in a position to represent my team within our district and constantly focus on ways that we can best serve our students. As we are now functioning in a post-quarantine environment and hopefully soon post-pandemic, my work in examining our online counseling services is vital. Not only are we aiming to provide equitable access to our services, but also assure students are receiving support and guidance as they navigate through their educational pathways.

I’d say getting to where I am today professionally was not a cake walk, but I didn’t know what to expect really when I was just a 21 year old, fresh out of SDSU with a psych degree that I had no idea what I was going to do with. I feel like my own personal experiences getting out of high school and maneuvering through community college and onto the university system – is what directed me into what I do now. The process of career exploration and one’s educational journey can be so overwhelming for most, that I’ve found great satisfaction in knowing that I can have a role in making that process a little easier for my students. I didn’t have that direction from my counselors when I was going to school, and I wish I had, because I feel like I honestly got just lucky that I landed in something that I enjoy and am good at.

What I’d most want people to know about my work.. is that for one, its ok not to immediately know what you want to be “when you grow up”- it is a journey and there are resources out there to help you. Also…. let’s remove the stigma that community college is just a “plan B”. :-)

Any advice for managing a team?

I’ve only been in my current role as chair of my department for a year now, and I honestly never in my life thought I would take on such a position. I felt that I had a strong organizational skill set, but I questioned how I would do in terms of working with others in a leadership role. If anything, I guess I thought I would use this opportunity to grow as a professional and force myself to focus on my people skills. I’m a counselor – so I have people skills…. but working with students as their counselor is waayyyy different than working with my peers as their chair.

My initial goals when I stepped into this role, was to create clearer processes and just be organized. I needed our office to “function”……. and remove all the “dys” from it. Having clear processes and creating an office culture of transparency and accountability was my focus. As the chair, I receive so much information that then needs to get funneled out to my team – so forming organized ways that information is distributed is important. I feel like the more those office “housekeeping” things could just run on its own, then the more counselors can focus on doing what they do best – serving students.

In terms of maintaining high morale… gosh, I feel like this was most challenging early last year when we were all still working from home in silo. There was so much disconnect in our online meetings when half the people kept their cameras off and let’s not forget that Zoom fatigue is very real. I started my role during a remote and largely disconnected time. However, our team has been able to meet in person for meetings since then and I’m very much looking forward to holding a retreat this fall where we can do some fun team building. Outside of that, I feel that celebrating our successes as often as we can, helps to maintain morale. I am so proud of our department and how we have maneuvered through the past 2 years. There is so much to pat ourselves on the back for.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Life is full of pivots. When I think about a story of a time when I had to pivot – I think about the pivot I took during my time as a community college student. Growing up in an Asian household, those expectations of becoming a doctor are real… SO REAL. My grandma was literally hanging over my shoulder whispering in my ear “be a doctor, or marry one.” Wow. Ok Grandma. But I suck at science and math.

The thing is, I didn’t even know how much I sucked at science and math until I was one year into the my college work. Ugh. Growing up, I didn’t really question what she told me. It was just like, ok, sure… that’s what I’ll be when I grow up. I don’t know where the career planning support was back when I was finishing high school, but that would have been mighty useful back then. By the time I realized that majoring in any type of science was absolutely NOT for me, I was halfway through my community college work and needed to decide on something – quick. My entire life I thought I was going to be some sort of medical doctor… like a pediatrician… and I ended up deciding on Psychology as my major – simply because it was the only class that held my attention. Even then, I had zero clue what I would do with that major afterwards. That was it. I made my entire undergraduate journey decision in that moment based on an attention grab. At that point, I just continued to wing it. I can probably base my career now on pure luck that I stayed within majors and part time job experiences that were in a similar pathway leading to where I am today. Not everyone is that lucky. Please go visit your college counselor :-)

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