An academic advisor on learning how to work through your mistakes
Photo: Alonso Nichols
Thank goodness for my parents. When I was little, instead of doing things for me, they taught me how to advocate for myself, both at school and in my day-to-day experience as a deaf person. They always made me talk to adults, to ask for help, and to speak up when I wasn’t getting what I needed.
That lesson fed into all the other life skills I’ve developed. Now, in my advising of students, I put their self-advocacy at the heart of our collaboration. We talk about resilience, the importance of seeking help, how to avoid feeling overwhelmed by life’s challenges, how to take time away as needed. The specific advice varies by student, but it all comes back to advocating for what you need and for how you want to grow.
Students are at Tufts because they did exceptionally well in high school. They just aren’t used to being uncomfortable with their progress in the classroom—and they often don’t like to ask for help. When they do misstep, they experience a kind of grief at the loss of that identity, of themselves as students who get all A’s and never struggle. So we definitely spend time talking about college as a good place for mistakes to happen. There are a lot of people at Tufts who can help you troubleshoot—not fix it for you… but teach you how to work through it.
The word “dean” in my title can intimidate students, so I do my share of myth-busting: we’re not meeting because you’re in trouble. Yes, part of my responsibility is telling students things that they don’t want to hear, and I often have to deliver difficult news. But we always share the same goal: for you to be successful at Tufts. Our relationship is a partnership—you tell me what you want and need from your education and I’m going to do my best to help you figure out how to get where you want to go.
—Matthew Bellof, A07, AG09, is an advising dean for students in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Our Tufts is a series of personal stories shared by members of the Tufts community and featured on both Tufts Now and Instagram.
