Primary Consultant #4

In addition to realizing that I didn't have enough weekly blog posts, I also realized that despite having several sessions a week for about three months straight, I have neglected posting primary consultant descriptions. So here's a #4 from about two weeks ago.

I met with a Lyman Briggs student for a gender and society paper. That was a first for me. I believe he was an international student, but he had a solid grasp on the general grammatical concepts of English, so nothing of that nature was a concern for me. I liked that he was very engaged with the session from the get-go and very clear about his goals. He wanted help with organization and would like a different perspective on whether or not everything seemed relevant and useful to his topic/thesis.

His thesis was buried a page and a half into the paper. I asked him what his professor's position on thesis placement was, and he said that she preferred the thesis to appear at least in the first three-quarters of the page, so he accordingly asked for help to cut it down. But that's three-quarters of a page. So I tried to look at the validity of his introduction and how it related, exactly, to his thesis. The first page didn't! I asked him how it correlated, and he saw for the first time that it didn't, so he cut an entire page, which left him room to expand on his conclusion.

I think by the end, he was pretty much done with it. We went paragraph by paragraph and made sure each somehow related and the point was clear and well-developed. I don't think he was very used to the topic nor the writing style, being a scientific writer in Lyman Briggs, so by the end he was surely mentally exhausted. But I feel he was satisfied with the work we put into it, and we set a few goals together for him to accomplish. So that was exciting.

I like that I've been able to assert authority in sessions but have taken plenty of steps back for the client to brainstorm solutions to potential problems. I've had a lot of trouble maintaining that balance, and his enthusiasm particularly made me realize that interaction, although dependent on both parties, can be facilitated by a non-directive but nonetheless leader-ish consultant.