Our blog this month is another staff interview with Elana Ruminski, our new First Year College Advisor at CSN. Note, Elana has asked that her unique answers be printed as she has written them:
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What is the most important lesson you have learned from the work you have done in your career so far?
Work. Life. Balance. Working full time / 40 hours is a lottt on top of the life that we’re living outside of our work. After serving at the past community college I was at for AmeriCorps (shout out Tacoma Community College <3) I learned to make sure to balance not only just my “life” but myself in the mix of “helping” others. Something I’ve still been struggling with, but always try to remind myself that I canNOT pour into others if my cup is empty and that “I” should practice putting me “1st”. -
If you could choose any superpower to use at work, what would it be and why did you pick it?
I have two that come to mind. One superpower would be the power to speak any and all languages. To make communicating easy on individuals with language barriers. And the second would be the power of teleportation! Would make getting around to all the school’s we service a breezeeee. -
What do you wish you knew before you went to college? How would knowing this information change your experience or expectations?
That there are other options outside of “going to college”. When I graduated HS really the only option that was heard of was going to college. 10 years later, I’m glad that there’s a lot more options for young people to choose from. Knowing this information may have pushed me to attend college later in life where I felt like I had more of a “path” or knowing of what I wanted to do. Also wish I knew about the going to community college before university pathway! May have saved me a little more money, since I was undeclared and exploring through university money for my first two years at UNLV. Wouldn’t change how my college experience went about! But glad I know all the ins and outs to help students now 😊 -
How do you like to celebrate success?
I like to celebrate success by celebrating with my fave foods / good eats and my loved ones! -
If you were going to learn to play a new instrument, what instrument would you pick and why?
I’ve been wanting to learn how to play the guitar! So that would be my first go to! I love songs and music that come from acoustic sounds. I have a playlist of songs on my Spotify that I want to learn how to play. A second choice would be learning how to DJ! Always been a lover of all kinds of music and think DJing with different intentions in mind for events would be fun! -
Give us a fun fact about Elana!
A Fun fact about me! I enjoy learning about different cultures / ethnicities (food and eats included). At UNLV I started my fascination of wanting to immerse myself in cultures after taking an Anthropology 101 class, where my professor at the time talked about her fieldwork experience in Africa with local tribes and dental work. Ever since then I’ve been wanting to travel and immerse myself within the world 🙂
