What COVID Taught Me

By Kelly Crabtree, college adviser for Perquimans County High School

The rapid approach of the end of my final year with the College Advising Corps has had me doing some reflecting on my service term. I had one year that was mostly unaffected by the coronavirus pandemic and one year that was dominated by it. I got to enjoy one year of meeting students face-to-face, taking them on field trips, and coaching them through college fairs; then the pandemic hit, and I spent the majority of my second year trapped behind a computer screen. I put a lot of work into helping students to the extent that I helped them last year, but the results I got felt so inadequate compared to what I accomplished last year. There were certainly days when frustration threatened to overwhelm me, just as I am sure it was threatening to overwhelm my students in their own pursuits, but one thing pulled us all through: community.

Perquimans County pretty much teaches you about the value of community from the very minute you start educating students there. I was impressed as a first-year advisor by how many local scholarships existed for my students, and I loved how local organizations stepped up to support the school system once it was shut down in March. However, I could not grasp the full extent of the value of community until I attempted to start advising a new class of seniors without it. In a county that largely relies on word-of-mouth communication and has very limited access to wireless internet, the technological resources that cropped up during quarantine were not going to cut it alone in my work as a college advisor. I was unable to reach a lot of my students through email and text message alone, so I had to utilize some human resources. What I accomplished this year would have been impossible without the help of the teachers who were willing to help me encourage my students to do what needed to get done for college.

My school staff helped me get my seniors ready for college, and my program staff and fellow advisors helped me get myself ready for graduate school. My next step after the College Advising Corps is a graduate program in higher education, and the route to apply for admission and secure financial aid was especially rough in a pandemic. It gave me a lot of perspective on what my students must be going through on their end. I like to think it made me a more empathetic educator, and I look forward to bringing my lessons learned into the roles I fill in the future. My advice to anyone else feeling frustration and burnout from the pandemic: lean on your network. Community will get you through hardship every time.