Why do college students need parent groups?

After nearly 30 years as a college counselor, Fu Rong feels more and more that this is a job that requires him to do everything.

At the end of the nineties of the last century, Fu Rong entered an ordinary normal college in Heilongjiang Province and took the initiative to choose the position of counselor. In her impression at the time, whether it was academic requirements or job content, counselors were the least involved in college positions.

But now, it's not just young teachers who are stuck in performance, but counselors are also under increasing pressure to evaluate. Especially in recent years, the relationship between home and school has been strengthened, and the parent group has almost become the "standard" of major colleges and universities. Fu Rong feels that his job is evolving from being responsible for students and the school to being responsible for students' families, like a "24-hour general help desk", and the functional boundaries of counselors are becoming more and more blurred.

The night before we contacted Fu Rong, she had just returned from the hospital, and a student was sent to emergency treatment because of a self-injury due to a "collapse" in love, and when Fu Rong returned home, it was already half past three in the morning. Fu Rong said that it is common to be called up in the middle of the night to go to the emergency room. Sometimes halfway through sleep, the bell suddenly rings, and the whole person will subconsciously bounce up from the bed, feeling like he has been shot.

It's not just the work of a counselor that's changing. As an "old" counselor who has led post-80s, post-90s and post-00s students, Fu Rong has witnessed the changes of students of different generations, the changes of parents, and the changes in the university education environment. In recent years, Fu Rong has found that his university is becoming more and more like a "greenhouse", continuing the learning and management model of high school. But she feels that universities should be a place for students to transition to adulthood and society. The goal of students is not only to learn, but also to find the main thread of life, which requires free space for exploration. If the previous high school model is continued, how can college students not be confused?

Fu Rong also felt confused, seeing that the team of college counselors was getting more and more rolled, among his colleagues, some went to Southeast Asia to roll up doctors, and some people rolled data in the table. The fine indicators preempt the part of the work that is originally full of vitality, "It's like every hair has been prescribed for you, it should float up 30 degrees."

After experiencing confusion and struggle, Fu Rong shared with us her thoughts and observations over the years. She also has a new understanding of the work of counselors - using "meeting standards" to deal with formalistic papers, and using the time and energy saved to "maximize the vitality of students to move forward".

The following is Fu Rong's narration.

Written by Aoko Aoko

Edited by Chu Ming

1

I don't know where to start when it comes to the job of a counselor or the changes in my university life. I was hesitant to accept your interview, but when I saw you mention the parent group, I really have something to say.

In the past two years, everyone has been talking about college parent groups. Many people find it strange that primary and secondary school students can understand that there are parent groups, and college students are already adults, so how can there be parent groups. I have also been asked many times, and every time I am helpless, I can only say to the other party, your question is very good, this is the school rule, I can't answer it.

The management model of each university is different, my university, 8 years ago, there were already individual colleges to establish a parent working group, after the successful cases were promoted, our college began to formally form a parent group in 2017. At the orientation meeting for new students in September every year, a QR code is posted on the spot, and parents are invited to scan the code to join the group.

In the beginning, the parent group was mainly a supplementary bulletin board for school information. For example, at the beginning of the freshman year, we will inform the students in the group of their academic plans, employment directions and school management regulations during the school period. At the end of each semester, parents will be notified of the holiday and start date, and reminded everyone to purchase tickets in advance. In the third and fourth years, we will also carry out some general career guidance for parents.

In recent years, the parent group has gradually become a Q&A platform to respond to various demands of parents. There are all kinds of problems. Some parents who are concerned about their children's studies and employment ask us to provide the students' class schedules for each semester, the school's research documents, and the standard rules of the public examination as soon as they enter the group. To be honest, as a counselor, I would love to see parents like this and answer all their questions.

But more often than not, it's a tentacle for parents to reach out to their children's college life. I have met many parents of new students, who went to the dormitory and immediately asked in the group why it was a six-person room, and whether it could be replaced with a two-person room; the children complained that the roommates were too noisy, and some asked to change the dormitory, and some asked the student roommates to stop for a while; the windows were leaking, the faucets and toilets were broken, and the students had not yet given feedback, so the parents complained in the group first.

There are also some parents, as long as they suddenly remember something, their first reaction is to find a counselor in the group. When the weather is cold, let the counselor go to see if the child has no clothes; in the morning, if the child does not reply to the message, ask the counselor to go to the dormitory to shout; when the child says that his stomach is uncomfortable, he quickly asks the counselor to buy medicine and send it over. Sometimes I really think that some parents want the counselor to be a "personal god", snap their fingers, and we show up immediately.

Over the years of forming the parent group, my biggest feeling is that the counselor has changed from serving students to serving the whole family. In addition to bringing their own students, it is not only necessary to "eliminate illiteracy" for parents, because after reading the regulations in the group, some parents will really call and ask why they can only ask for leave with sick leave slips, and the management is so inhumane? When students and parents have conflicts, I also have to act as an aunt in the neighborhood committee, chatting with parents and children respectively, how to communicate, and how to chat.

For the school, after the large-scale establishment of the parent group, it means that the school management has been meticulous to the family of each student. A long time ago, some parents did say, I don't know what your university rules are. After having a parent group, the relevant student management regulations will be sent directly to the group, once any problems occur, the parent group has been notified, and the parents are aware of the default.

Parents also acquiesced that as long as they finished speaking in the group, the counselor had to reply immediately. Once they don't see it at the moment, some parents feel neglected, and sometimes even complain. I haven't experienced it myself, but I have encountered a counselor colleague who had a student who had a fever at night, and his mother asked the counselor to take the child to the hospital in the group. At that time, it was about 11 o'clock in the evening, the dormitory was closed, and the counselor just didn't see it. The next day, the parents called the school office to complain, saying that the counselor was not responsible.

For students, with a parent group, parents can always know what they are doing in school through the counselor. Sometimes we have just sent out the school holiday notice, and the students do not tell the parents, the parents will tell the students, you don't tell me when the school holidays, I also have channels to know. At this time, students will feel that the counselor is the "spy" of the parents at school, the faint backstabber.

Of course, there is also a problem of degree. I rarely post anything other than the prescribed information in the parent group, but I know that some counselors will communicate the school to parents in every detail. For example, the notice of large and small exams every semester, "Please urge your students to study and prepare for the exam". They are not necessarily intentional, but they are also afraid that students will not go to their hearts, and they want to emphasize it again with the help of parents' mouths to improve the educational effect. Parents will habitually tell their children when they see it, there is still half a month to take the exam, I see why your circle of friends is still eating, drinking, playing and having fun, you can review it quickly.

I have also seen some parent groups, the counselor said, the following is a long list of thanks, the whole group in terms of content, atmosphere, to appeals, and the parent group of elementary and junior high schools is really not much different.

From my point of view, eighteen years old is the age of adulthood, if high school is still a greenhouse, college should be a transition place to adulthood and society, students have to use their own feet to explore, know which is cold and which is warm, touch with their own hands, even if they are cut by ice, at least know, when they completely leave the warm area of the school, go to those three or nine days, what it will be like. Blindly continue the management model of the high school and continue to extend the greenhouse, where is the end?

This management model is also impractical. Elementary and junior high school students return home after school, but college students return to their dormitories after class, and they have to face people who have no blood, no warm past, and even no common goal, at least they have to learn how to get along with classmates from all over the world, at least they can take care of themselves and live independently. If parents still worry about everything, when will they be able to develop these self-care skills in college?

Photo source: TV series "Thirty Only"

2

The parent group is just one of the small platforms. When did we start getting involved in student life, you ask? Actually, when I first started working, I also wondered, when I was in college, all year round, I would only see the counselor at the beginning of the semester, and at the end of the semester, I would not see it. At other times, you will only occasionally meet in the cafeteria.

I was a college student in the 90s, and after graduation, I worked in other jobs, and then I went to my current university because I had to take care of my family. When I first joined the job, I could still choose a position, and I took the initiative to ask to be a counselor, and in my impression, this job was quite easy. After doing it, I realized that it was a job that had to do everything.

We are a dual management mechanism of school and college. In addition to the school's functional departments giving orders directly to the counselor, the college can also issue orders. For example, the school-level departments that are closely related to us, mainly the Office of Student Affairs, are responsible for the daily management of students by counselors. At the same time, the student work offices of our various colleges also undertake the work responsibilities of the Youth League Committee.

The Organization Department is mainly responsible for the organizational development of students, such as the evaluation of students' membership in the Party and League members, and the Finance Department is responsible for collecting tuition fees. The Archives is responsible for collecting and organizing the archives, and the Textbook Office organizes students to collect the textbooks. The Admissions and Employment Office, to be precise, also has a very close relationship with us.

September is the busiest time for all counselors. The days of orientation are different for each school, some are weekdays, but a considerable number of schools are placed on Saturdays and Sundays. When students return to school, they are required to go to work by counselors, followed by military training, although it is said that the freshman counselor leads the team, but it is not realistic for a counselor to lead, so during the beginning of the school year, we are in school almost every day.

Others feel that after the start of school, the counselors are relaxed, working from Monday to Friday and taking Saturday and Sunday off. Actually, we don't have any weekends to speak of. The school has always given us the philosophy that "no small matter is for students". With WeChat, there is no boundary between commuting and commuting. I remember one time I forgot to charge it, but that day I checked whether the counselor's phone was turned on 24 hours a day, and I was checked. The next day, I had to explain to the leaders.

In the past 30 years as a counselor, it is normal to be called to the emergency room in the middle of the night. The most frequent should be the epidemic in the past three years. Many times, I took 4 students to the hospital for nucleic acid and medical treatment, and brought them back to school. Usually, students have stomach cramps at night, and they are used to calling the counselor to explain the situation. If the counselor is at home, he will go to the emergency department by himself, and the school will call 120 or the classmates will send him to the emergency department, and after arriving at the emergency department, the student has no money in his pocket, so the counselor will advance the money, and it is normal that he cannot get it back, and the school will not report it, and there is no such fund.

I'm sure many counselors suffer from heart palpitations. At eleven or twelve o'clock in the middle of the night or even in the early hours of the morning, the phone rings suddenly, and the whole person will subconsciously bounce up from the bed, feeling that he has been shot, because he does not know what happened and what situation he will face. A leader told me that the time that impressed me the most was when he saw me at the door of the ICU, hugging and crying with the student's mother, and the student's death was like I had lost a loved one. Actually, I just feel distressed, a good girl is gone, if she wants to be admitted to Peking University, she can work hard.

Looking back now, this job was really experienced. You ask me how I persevered, in fact, in the first seven or eight years I came to school, I was still relatively ignorant, I had a lot of stumbles, and I was also angry with students and cried. At that time, a student who was about to graduate came to me and asked me why she didn't get a scholarship a year and a half ago, saying that I was discriminating against her. But at that time, she didn't get ranked, she just wasn't qualified. I don't understand. Later, when I remembered my freshman year, I criticized her, she laughed at the poor girls in the dormitory, who had no underwear to wear, and I was also young at that time, so I directly disciplined this girl, saying why do you look down on people? I didn't expect her to remember until she graduated.

The next few years were relatively smooth, and I also knew that when I encountered problems, I had to calm down, think logically, and do my part as well as possible. For a while, the students I led worked their own, and I did my best to help them, and the atmosphere of the whole class was very upbeat and united, and everyone felt like they were about to take off, and the graduate school entrance examination rate at graduation broke the historical record. To this day, I am proud of the fact that there is nothing that makes a counselor happier than the growth of a student.

Photo source movie "Dead Poets Society"

3

However, since about five or six years ago, in sync with the parent group, I have found that on the one hand, the counselor function is becoming more and more boundless, and on the other hand, the task of non-core work is becoming more and more stressful. The reasons for this are complex, and I can only talk about them in terms of how my work has changed.

The first is the increasing number of online learning courses. For example, in the online course of safety education, students are required to learn online courses, and how much they have learned can be counted as credits. The background can check the learning records, and if you don't learn or don't finish it, you will regularly return it to the counselor, saying that you have these students who haven't finished or haven't learned.

At this time, the counselor has to go to the student group to fish for people one by one, urge him to complete his studies, and if he encounters someone who has not learned, he has to ask him for the account name and password, and finish learning for him. Don't think it's outrageous, if the counselor doesn't do it, he will be circled in the work group, and the school will regularly publish a list of how many students in each college have failed to complete on time which counselor.

Not only students, but also counselors have to take regular online classes, and how many credits they need to take throughout the year. When studying, a prompt panel pops up every 10 minutes, "Please click XX", to prove that you are still online, otherwise you will automatically exit the page and start over.

The second block is that there are more and more reports and summaries. Although we don't have KPIs and OKRs on the surface, in fact, this kind of quantitative assessment has penetrated into daily affairs. Each of the counselor responsibilities I talked about earlier will have targeted indicators. For example, how many group meetings and class meetings are required to be held every year, and only when the basic value is reached will there be points on this item, and this item is a small item among countless items;

These indicators used to exist, but they are not as refined as they are now, as if each hair strand has been prescribed for you, it should float up 30 degrees.

For example, the first time to check the hygiene of the dormitory was once a month, then half a month, and now it is a weekly inspection; the earliest is to write a work summary every year, then monthly, and now it is weekly. There are NPCs everywhere, and it's okay to be obvious, and there are a lot of stealth NPCs, I don't know when, where, and what will trigger the "one-vote veto", one vote for three years, and three years for nothing.

In addition, all departments related to student work will ask us to submit a separate summary of the same assignment. For example, for a school-level cultural festival, the next notice from the Student Affairs Office, the next notice from the Youth League Committee, the next notice from the Propaganda Department, and the next notice from the college. For the same activity, submit four summaries, each of which must be different, just like 4 pieces of clothing, the same style, but the color is different.

As a result, often I made an appointment with a student to do a career plan that day, and suddenly two tables came down, and I had to deal with these first. But personally, I think it would be really beneficial for him personally if I spent these two hours talking to the students and talking about them, at least better than if I filled in the boxes they had drawn for me with what they wanted to see.

Sometimes, I feel like these reports are just to compete with me for time and let me fill out the forms mechanically, rather than leaving them for my children to help them grow. But in the long run, where will the creative and vital things in the counselor's work that allow children to live well?

In addition to these increasingly heavy tasks, there is also an increasing pressure of responsibility. Some time ago, students returned to school during the winter vacation, and before, as long as the building director agreed, students could live directly in it. However, in the past few years, the counselor must confirm in writing or by phone before the building manager will let the students into the dormitory.

That day, one of my students took a screenshot of me and her WeChat to the building manager, and the other party said no, he had to call me to confirm. When I was communicating with the building manager about this, a teacher next to me also wondered, saying that since the student had returned to school, let her live in, why did the counselor agree. I told her that there was a problem here, that once a student enters the dormitory, he or she is sure that he is part of the school's management. During this time, if anything goes wrong with the student, the counselor is responsible for the safety of the student who returns to school early.

At the end of the day, it's a matter of system design and accountability process. The counselor is the person closest to the student, and any student-related matters will definitely fall to us in the end. Every time I see a college recruiting counselor, I wonder why colleges and universities don't necessarily recruit teachers every year, but they do recruit counselors? Can I understand that the faster the parts wear out, the less time they need to be replaced.

Source: Visual China

4

When I was in college, most of my life was in clubs, except for my studies. Every weekend, I would go out to work, get up at 5:30 in the morning, go out to take the bus, go to tutor students, and when I earn money, I will buy books and delicious food, and my life is very simple and happy.

After working in this school, the first few classes of students are still relatively active, some listen to their parents, and some are rebellious, but their hearts are more self-consistent. In the past few years, I have observed that there are more and more unhappy students and more and more confused students.

I have met many juniors and seniors who come up and ask, "Teacher, do you think I will go to graduate school or get a job in the future?" I often talk to students about job search competitiveness, and I find that about seventy or eighty out of 100 people have nothing in college life except for professional course grades, no internships, no social practice, and no club activities.

Sometimes I also reflect that I can't blame the child for this. As mentioned earlier, the management of the parent group is not only the parent group, but the "greenhouse" of the university is reflected in all aspects of student life. For example, during the May Day or Eleventh holiday, the children in the past would go to play wherever they wanted, and they would come back to class at the right time. But now, before the holidays, there are still statistics on where everyone goes, some stay in school and don't leave, and they have to be late every day. This roll call system is only successful when the check-in is done within the campus, and if there is no check-in in the evening, the counselor will have to confirm it one by one.

In terms of campus activities, whether it was when I was in college or when I first started working at this school, there were dances in the school, but then they all stopped because I was worried about mass fights. At present, only the counselor leads the group of students to participate in a certain type of activity that is officially designated.

Another aspect of "greening" is that students continue to learn in high school. We know that in the study of elementary and junior high schools, everyone goes to school on the table and has a goal for the college entrance examination. But when we go to university, we have many goals, not only to study, but also to find the main thread in life. This is something that requires the children to stand up on their own, look around and explore. If the previous model is continued, how can students not be confused?

There are also changes in parents. In the past few years, I have seen many parents, even if there is no parent group, they will add the contact information of their children's roommates one by one, and once they can't contact their children, they will go to their classmates. Sometimes, students may tell their parents that I don't adapt well in the dormitory, and I have a little quarrel with someone in the dormitory, and the child has no intention of complaining, and the parents will call me and say that who is in their dormitory, and the character is not very good.

I've seen the most powerful, two girls in the dormitory bickering, usually they have a good relationship, that day because of the appointment to eat together by one of the pigeons, just turned over the small account, just one of the girls' mother called, heard her daughter crying, immediately hung up and let me persuade, not only called me, she also called a few relatives in the local area, relatives rushed to the dormitory, asked for the contact information of the other party's parents. Obviously, there are no principled problems between them, and after two days, they will be reconciled, and once they get it like this, the child will really not even have to be friends in the future.

Therefore, I have also found that today's students seem to be less and less comfortable with the natural interaction between people, and they are often at a loss and less tolerant of each other. On average, at least 5 dormitories are asked to be relocated due to quarrels and conflicts, especially on weekends, and I often have to deal with dormitory disputes.

I think that, on the one hand, today's children are only children, and they have very little close contact with their peers, so they are used to having their own territory. And everyone dares to express that if you make me uncomfortable, I will say it immediately, I can't bear it.

On the other hand, there is also the impact of management, which is not just a problem of university management, such as the previous elementary and junior high schools, where children were open to play after class, mingling outside the classroom, and now there are many places where children cannot go downstairs between classes, otherwise they will be deducted points. If our education is fixed in a small compartment from an early age, and when it comes to college, it suddenly opens, and many people will of course be at a loss.

And then there's the mental health of students that everyone is talking about. When I first started working, once a student had a sudden mental illness, I didn't say that there were any symptoms in the early stage. However, in the past two years, several students have had a seizure, and a deeper understanding only learned that they had been suspended from school and hospitalized in junior high and high school.

Twice a year, our school conducts mass screenings for students' mental health conditions. To be honest, these screening scales can be completely circumvented if the child is a little careful. I also found that if the energy of the scale comes out, if you pay more attention to it in the later stage, there will be basically no major events, and I am even more worried if it can't be measured. Sometimes when I meet some students, I feel like I'm facing a black hole and he absorbs all your words without any feedback and doesn't blink with either eye.

External changes also affect them, in the past, a person's road was relatively single, just a straight line, going forward, there were not too many forks in the road. But now, there is so much information and so scattered, each student seems to hold several balls of yarn in his hand, and he can throw them out in different directions, but if he does not have a straight thread in his heart, he will become very fragmented, and he feels very fragmented.

This kind of dispersion, or fragmentation, is not only reflected in the allocation of time, I have observed that college life is also fragmented, in the main context of personal growth, parents want to control him, individuals also have ideas, his environment, maybe this student wants to go to graduate school, that student wants to get employed, and his opinions are also fragmented.

We are not an elite university here, and perhaps the elite university is indeed the hardest hit area of involution. But as far as I can see, there are also those who are rolled up, mainly those who have a main line in their minds and have never stopped, as soon as they enter the school, they set clear goals for themselves. There are also some who are forced to roll up, and it may be that the parents ask them to roll up. And the parents have already stipulated that they should go in the direction of the public examination.

There are many more children, some of whom are tired, busy chattering all day long, filling their lives to the fullest, but not having specific goals, and some are tired, such as whether to go to graduate school or get a job? There are also some children who are not tired or tired, and they live in a mess, so after 4 years, when they leave the novice village of the university, the society cannot enter, and only their parents will take over the baton.

Photo source: The movie "Detachment"

5

In recent years, the employment environment has also changed. Every year is the most graduation season, the employment pressure of students is high, and the task pressure of counselors in enrollment and employment is also increasing.

In the past, in the area of employment, the more active party was the employer, as the saying goes, it slowly became a double choice, and the school began to actively contact the employers of previous graduates to see if they still have recruitment plans this year, and the counselors will also contact some employers through their own relationships and resources, and after confirming that the other party has a recruitment plan, they will invite him to the school and hold a job fair for the fresh graduates.

Since last year or the year before, the employment sector has focused on visiting enterprises to expand their posts, that is, counselors take the initiative to visit enterprises with useful needs. New positions are discovered through the annual update of the employer database.

After the students reach their senior year, we will also set up a separate employment account for each student, and communicate regularly to confirm what status they are currently in, how many resumes they have submitted, how many responses they have received, where they want to go, which position is the most attractive, and so on. It is equivalent to making a dynamically adjusted career planning and employment guidance for each student.

Many people don't know that what we call the "employment rate" is actually a one-time employment rate, which ends on the last night of August every year, that is, within two months of graduation.

In the current job market, the employment period is much longer than before, the employment rate at the end of the year is definitely better than in August, and the employment situation will be better after the new year. But for counselors, the employment rate at the end of August is a hard indicator.

The pressure to find a job also comes from the student and his family. Relatively speaking, counselors come into contact with a large number of employers and graduates every year, and have a better understanding of the industries involved in their majors, and have a preliminary expectation of where each student can go in terms of employment, what kind of positions he can get, and what development he will have in the future.

The problem is that my expectations often don't align with the expectations of parents for students. At this point, students will oscillate back and forth between reality and parents' expectations. Last year, one of my graduates has found a more secure job, and he is quite satisfied with himself. But the child's father thought that he had no problem going to graduate school. This student's grades are the fifth from the bottom in the major, and he hasn't even passed the fourth level of college English, so he still has to be allowed to take the exam, and he has paid the entrance examination class and exam fees, so he can't be persuaded no matter how he can. The students were also confused and didn't know what to do. In the end, I communicated with the child's mother again and again, and she went to persuade the father to give up the idea of letting the child go to graduate school.

Of course, there are also knowledgeable parents, but my observation is that there are a considerable number of parents, other people's children are going to graduate school, my children are also going to be admitted to graduate school, other people's children are taking the public examination, and my children are also taking the public examination. In the past, parents didn't interfere if they didn't understand, and let their children do it. Over the years, I feel that the Internet has developed, knowledge has become fragmented, and everyone can obtain more and more information, and many parents feel that they know everything, but in fact, there is a certain degree of disconnection with the real society and the real situation of their children.

I remember once when a new student was being greeted, a parent sent his child to him, and he told him that you must pass the fourth or sixth grade, and I was very curious at that time, and asked him why he said that? The parent said, I read it on the Internet, and only after passing the fourth or sixth grade can you get the degree certificate. What time is this old yellow calendar?

In his senior year, this child was preparing to study abroad, and as soon as he returned to school, he told me that his parents told me to pass IELTS, but I didn't know how to get back.

As for today's children, on the surface, they will resist more than before, and will do some rebellious small actions, such as asking him to take the graduate school entrance examination at home, and the registration fee is paid, but the student does not go secretly. But when it comes to the decision-making of major life events, if his college entrance examination intention is reported under the influence of his parents, the final employment will still go according to the parents' instructions.

For a long time, in the field of employment, I hope that students can find their own life coordinates, do jobs that interest them, and make them happy and happy. This job may not be exactly the same as the major, nor is it necessarily fame and fortune, but it must make people feel meaningful, fulfilled, happy, and rewarded.

I met a parent who asked me to talk to his daughter about the need to be admitted to the graduate school of colleges and universities in the province, and he said, we are such a daughter, we can't be too far away from home. But I know that this student can go to any major university if he wants to. I asked her, what do you think, and she said that she wanted to be admitted to a 985 college in another province. I'll just say, you're fine, come on. She asked me in surprise, didn't my dad ask you to persuade me to take the provincial college entrance examination. I said, your dad said his, you are my student, I am only responsible for you. She left happily after hearing this, and later got her wish to be admitted to the graduate school of that university.

I also found that in the so many classes of students I have led, especially in the previous years, the system is not the absolute goal of students. If you don't want to pass the test, you won't be as stressful as you are now. At that time, there were still relatively many opportunities, and everyone's mentality was, do anything, I'll try it first, life is still long.

But in the past few years, I have clearly felt that not only parents, but also students have basically the same mentality, how stable and stable they are. Regardless of whether you can pass the exam or not, everyone first swarms to take the postgraduate examination, and the average score of those who can be admitted is about 30%, and those who can't pass the exam converge with others to take the public examination. I have met some students who have found a job in a private company, signed a contract before signing a contract, or decided to break the contract and want to enter the system, and even directly told me that I want to do the kind of life that can see retirement at a glance. As a counselor, I feel helpless and powerless, but that's the reality.

Source: Visual China

6

Finally, I would also like to talk about the confusion and reflection over the years. Nowadays, many people say that counselors are very curly, and as far as I can see, "rolls" are real papers, but many of them are not rolls on the core work of counselors.

Parallel to the team of college teachers, counselors also have their own promotion paths, double-line promotion, can be promoted to professional titles, can also be promoted, the highest level has a director-level counselor, can be the deputy secretary of the college, secretary.

I've seen a lot of counselors open Weibo, open video accounts, and set up their own studios. The original intentions are different, the content is sunny and upward, the influence has its own merits, and the later development also has its own style. The "volume" on the daily submission materials is also full of flowers, some completely imitate the format of the superior, the title is in bold two, the text is in italic, and after completion, it is not simply bound with staples and paper clips, but then reported with a single-rod folder or a fully enclosed document bag, well, just two pages;

There are also some counselors who choose to study for a doctorate on the job, and the most important thing is not to leave their posts, but only compress their time and energy; some have been asking for leave and leave all the students in charge of themselves to their colleagues; and some choose to go abroad to study for a doctorate. The idea is that with a doctorate, you will have the opportunity to change to a teaching position, leave the team of counselors, have the opportunity to become the dean of the college, or be attached to the relevant teaching and research department as a master's supervisor.

Especially the new counselors in the past few years are really different from us at that time. As soon as they joined, they may have made it clear what I was going to do in the future, so what I have to do now is to take every step of the way through a career plan that starts with the end in mind. In fact, it is also about seeking stability, just like students.

I also saw the announcement of a university recruiting counselors that day, all of them were PhDs, and I thought, is there a desire for stability to this extent? You know, when I first came to this school, there really wasn't anyone who wanted to be a counselor.

For a year or two, I seriously thought about quitting. Not only is it stressful, but the most unbearable thing for me is that this profession is not respected. Part of our duty is to check on the students' late arrivals and early departures, and many times when I go to the classroom to check the lessons, after I go in, the teacher directly says, "Who are you?" I said, I am the counselor of this class, to see if there is any skipping class. I said, "It's recess." He immediately said to his classmates, we will start classes right now, please go out.

This has happened to a lot of counselors. In colleges and universities, from top to bottom, many people think that counselors are in charge of students, and there is something great about it. But in my understanding, whether it is a teacher or a counselor, it is an ordinary job, we all perform our own duties, some people make a living from this, some people use it for love, some people use it for profit, and some people use it for fame, there is no distinction between high and low.

But why didn't I leave? Probably like many teachers, it was always my students who kept me going. In 2020, I met a girl who was about to drop out of school in the first half of her freshman year. She has a good foundation, but when she first entered school, she was a little confused, and with difficulties at home, she wanted to work in the factory. At that time, it was almost winter vacation, so I told her that life in the factory may be different from what you think, otherwise I will use the vacation time to feel it first, and then talk about it when school starts. At my insistence, the kid said, okay, teacher, I'll listen to you, but if I think it's good to work part-time, I won't come back at the beginning of school, so I'll ask my classmates to help me.

Later, the epidemic broke out, and by the time she returned to school, it was already May. At that time, I told her again, study for a while, see how your grades are at the end of this semester, maybe you are more suitable for this major than you think. The child has been learning, and this time last year, she was admitted to a graduate school at a 211 university. She didn't express her gratitude to me, and I didn't care, I was only secretly happy for her in my heart. I think this is the value of being a counselor, to stimulate the vitality of students to move forward to the greatest extent, and to plant a tree in their hearts. It doesn't need to be recognized, but it has intrinsic value in its own right.

Last time we chatted, you asked me what I consider to be a counselor duty. I thought about it seriously, and now, I have set a new responsibility for myself: the biological age and mental age of students can grow simultaneously, and before graduation, students can have the ability to be self-reliant, self-reliant, and self-loving.

(At the request of the interviewee, Fu Rong is a pseudonym.) ） 

Photo source: The movie "Detachment"