Counselor’s corner

Having freshmen coming in and seniors getting ready to graduate, counselors have a lot to handle.

Wingspan’s Prachurjya Shreya sat down with counselor Alma Campo in this edition of “Get to know”to discuss many aspects of the student body.

Wingspan: What is your advice to freshmen this year?

Campo: “My advice to freshmen would be to just get a system down that works for you. An organizational system and time management; something that is going to help you succeed because that is something you will carry on for the rest of the years. Try to do the best you can in 9th grade because these grades start counting in 9th grade and that’s where your GPA begins to accumulate.”

Wingspan: When did you first realize your passion for helping others?

Campo: “I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. But when I was teaching, that’s when I knew that I wanted to pursue counseling and get my counseling degree. So, I guess that you can say it was probably around my third year of teaching that I decided I wanted to pursue that. Now, I have been a counselor for almost sixteen years.”

Wingspan: What makes you want to work here on campus?

Campo: “Working at Liberty is very rewarding. I think it i the student drive to succeed and just diversity at Liberty. All of those different things combined makes me very happy to be here.”

Wingspan: What would you recommend to students dealing with stress?

Campo: “Of course that is something that we also see working at Liberty. A lot of students do because it is so academically challenging. Students, I think get challenged amongst each other also so therefore, it leads to stress. Students dealing with stress, I would just say to try and find a positive outlet. Anything that can help you when dealing with stress. Find a good friend to talk to or find an adult to talk to. Listen to music. Go for a run. Do whatever it is that can help you kind of decompress.”

Wingspan: What would you do if one of your students wanted to drop out of high school?

Campo: “That has happened before. I try to talk to the student about what their options are if they don’t drop out. But ultimately, it’s up to the parent and the student to decide if that’s the route. There are many different circumstances and sometimes the students that need to drop out are for other reasons. Sometimes it is because they have to get to work for family. To help their family out. It’s so many different circumstances so it just kind of depends on the situation.”

Wingspan: How do you feel about bullying?

Campo: “Well, I don’t like bullying. But of course, we all know it happens for many different things. What we always try to tell the students is to notify an adult. That way we know what is occurring and we can put a stop to it. So, anytime that we can train somebody to report and do all the necessary things then hopefully things like that will minimize a little.”

Wingspan: On the subject of bullying, how do you feel when you help a student out with bullying and/or in general?

Campo: “It is a rewarding feeling. Sometimes though when a student comes with the initial complaint, we ask them to let us know if something continues or the behavior continues. Not all the times do the students let us know so we assume things are going good now and they always aren’t. This is something we also try to encourage students to continue telling us. Overall, it is a rewarding feeling though.”

Wingspan: What are your pet peeves?

Campo: “My pet peeves are when students procrastinate. When they procrastinate, and it becomes an emergency for them and then they expect me to drop everything I am doing to help them out. That is one of my biggest pet peeves.”

Wingspan: How has this job impacted your life outside of school?

Campo: “You know like any other job, sometimes in school counseling so many things happen. Not everything is positive. Sometimes things are a little negative. Sometimes we have some sucidicial things that we wish didn’t happen but they do. So outside of school, depending on how my day goes here, that does impact my day at home as well because you know sometimes it is very draining emotionally and  physically. But there’s also a lot of really positives about it as well.”

Wingspan: On the positive side, how does it make you feel when students graduate?

Campo: “It’s an awesome feeling. We get to attend every graduation and we are on the opposite side of the stage when the students come down. We are the first ones to get to congratulate them and so it is a very exciting feeling.”

Wingspan: Last but not least, what can we do as a whole to improve? What can we improve on socially?
Campo: “I think Liberty does a really good job already. I sponsor the club “Pulse”, which is all about connectivity and getting connected and so I think we try a lot to try to include students in every aspect of everything we do. If anything, it would be a lot more of that. Just making Liberty’s overall atmosphere a very welcoming one.”