Coaching helps Students find Paths to Success
Burst for Prosperity Stories - Mouy-ly Wong
Mouy-ly Wong is an Academic Advisor and Retention Coordinator at Highline Community College, with dual roles in the Advising Department and the Transition Referral and Resource Center. Born in Cambodia, she came to the United States at the age of six after two years in refugee camps in Thailand.
Her experiences in being a refugee and navigating a new culture eventually led her to academic advising and the Burst for Prosperity Coaching for Prosperity® Training, which she uses to help other students from diverse backgrounds navigate the difficult process of finding their own path in life and achieving success. Here’s what Mouy-ly has to say about her experience:
"We’re seeing a huge increase in confidence because it’s coming from them; it’s coming from the students where they’re recognizing, 'Wow, I can do this.' "
I think what’s been really great about coaching is that I’m not the expert. I’m using empowerment tools, and empowering to me means I’m allowing the student to explore. A lot of times the advisors’ training is really prescriptive: you have to do one thing to get to another. With the coaching model, students are ready where they are, their needs can be met where they are, and the steps that are taken don’t belong to us; they belong to them. Coaching has allowed me to detach from my own agenda.
What I’ve really gained from the Burst for Prosperity coaching project is really the fact that students are whole. Their buckets are full. It’s not a deficit model. I’m learning the real power of listening, and that’s huge. It’s important to really listen for, not listen to. There’s a deeper level of listening skills that needs to happen in order for us to be effective.
Coaching is about building strong relationships, and when we’re partnering up with students they know that because we don’t have a set agenda. They set the agenda, they’re the ones who are the drivers. In counseling you’re visiting the history and looking at the why, coaching is about the present moment and moving forward I don’t pressure my students to have an outcome. For coaching I just feel that they come in here knowing that I’m partnering with them, that I’m going to be cheering them on wherever they are in the process. Coaching allows students to be more who they are instead of us setting what we want them to be.”
I have a student that I’m still working with who is deciding what to do. She came in thinking she wanted to do nursing because that’s where the money is, the pay is good, and it’s doable wherever she lives. I asked her, “What does that look like for you? What do you see yourself doing as a nurse?” When I start asking those hard questions, it really gets them thinking. It’s not me telling them this is a bad option for you. It made her think, “What really are the core reasons that I want to go into nursing? Is it because I really want to do or is it the peer pressure of society and family?” By exploring her situation she stepped back and realized, “Gosh, I don’t really want to do nursing. I really want to do something else.” She discovered more of who she was in this process and as a result now she’s changing her major into something she’s really passionate about.
We’re seeing a huge increase in confidence because it’s coming from them; it’s coming from the students where they’re recognizing, “Wow, I can do this.” As advisors, we tend to be more fixers – “let’s fix your problems like this” – and since they don’t have ownership, students aren’t going to feel as excited or as part of the process. We want to stretch them a little bit, enough that they’re continuing to walk toward their goal, yet allowing that space to reflect and come back and pick up where we were. In advising, we don’t really have that opportunity.
I used to be a refugee. I came from Cambodia in 1980, and I had to go through a traditional system that wasn’t easy. My parents were in their 30s, and they didn’t know a lot about the new American culture. It was really up to us, the kids, to figure out, now that you’re finished with high school, what are you going to do? Fortunately, my parents knew that education was really important and they made it happen for all four of us.
I knew in my heart that I really wanted to give back to the community and serve our invisible community of refugees, immigrants, and ESL students. I once was an ESL student and that was really hard. The struggles were there, and being able to relate to our target population. We were low-income; we didn’t have anything. Now I’m living on the other side and looking back and seeing how I could help bridge those gaps and find resources that can help those students. I recognize that with the system that I went through in the past, I barely made it, and I thought to myself there has to be a better way.
Mouy-ly Wong helps students from diverse backgrounds find their own path in life and achieve success.
