By Lauren Combs | Reporter

(WACO, Texas)— Rachel Garcia, Baylor graduate and former admissions counselor, accepted the position to become Bachelor of Social Work Program Manager and Academic Advisor on July 15.

“I work alongside students assisting them, making sure they are going to graduate on time and with their classes,” Garcia said. “It’s really just supporting and guiding students throughout their time in social work at Baylor and help them reach their end goals, which is to graduate and hopefully find a job or an internship post-grad.”

Before accepting this job, Garcia worked with high school students and their families. Although she said it has been a transition working with completely different student populations, Garcia said she loves how invested her department is in people.

“They want to be in the communities,” Garcia said. “They want to be in clinics helping people and helping the community, in whatever facet that looks like, whether that is schools, communities, foster care, adoption agencies, clinical studies, therapy, counseling. Their focus is on the human individual.”

If she could go back, Garcia said she would have majored in social work but didn’t learn about it until later in life. However, she said she had a desire to help her community from a young age because of her family.

“What really makes my family great is how invested we are in each other, how invested we are in the world and invested in people,” Garcia said.

As a pastor’s kid, you got to observe a lot and got to see how pastoral care is in works. It all goes back to the servant heartedness. It all goes back to just wanting to help people…I feel like social work has that. They see a need, that there is inequity in a lot of spaces, and they want to do what they can to help with that balance— to make things more equitable.”

Garcia said she works to make life more equitable for people through her advising role.

“In terms of advising, it’s making sure times are equitable for all of my students wether they are traditional or non-traditional students,” Garcia said. “Making sure that opportunities are more equitable and coming into situations with an unbiased approach and the willingness to treat each student fairly and equally.”

Unfortunately, Garcia said the biggest conflict in advising settings is a lack of trust. Columbia University wrote about the affects of COVID-19 on advisors in 2020 writing, “Advisors— who have historically served students in person on campus—were forced to quickly and drastically transform their practices to meet new student needs.”

Garcia said she likes to meet with her students in person, one-on-one to get to know them on an academic and personal level to combat this.

“As long as there is trust and communication, especially, that can really really benefit the student and academic advisor professional relationship,” Garcia said. “I definitely have their best interest at heart.”

Fresno, Calif. junior Claire Singer, a student Garcia advises, said she experienced this when she met with Garcia to drop a class.

“She just genuinely cares and wants to make sure your schedule is the best and that you’re getting all of the classes that you need,” Singer said. “It’s very clear that she sees you as a person before a student, which is really cool.”