Brandeis GPS Blog

Insights on online learning, tips for finding balance, and news and updates from Brandeis GPS

Tag: Student advising

Meet the newest GPS student advisor

Paris Mansoor, student advisorParis Mansoor, our newest student advisor, recently joined Brandeis GPS from Wellesley College, where she served as Assistant Registrar. She brings a wealth of knowledge in higher education to the role, as well as a deep commitment to supporting students.

Read below to hear more about Paris’ professional background and personal interests, as well as the best piece of advice she received as a student.

Q: What led you to becoming a student advisor at Brandeis GPS?
A: When I graduated college, my first full-time job was as a financial advisor at Boston University (BU). Getting a taste of helping students made me realize very quickly that my life passion was in higher education. I really enjoyed advising students about policies and procedures and helping them navigate the system. My love of advising and assisting students continued throughout my career with most of my time spent as an assistant registrar at BU Dental School and at Wellesley College. I wanted to be a student advisor at Brandeis because I knew the role would allow me to have more direct involvement with students in working with them from the start of their program all the way to the end.

Q:  What is the best piece of advice that you received as a student?
A: The best advice I have ever received as a student was to take a challenging project/task and break it down into smaller tasks or pieces. Map it all out and work on each different piece on a set schedule. Continue working on each piece while still keeping in mind how it all fits together. Sometimes grouping similar tasks together is best and other times working on one piece at a time from start to end is the way to go. It’s like planting seeds all over your garden, but then watering and tending to each section as needed until you have a complete garden. I still use this advice everyday in my personal life and work.

Q: What would your ideal Saturday or Sunday look like?
A: My ideal Saturday would consist of having french pastries and yummy iced coffee in the early part of the day while spending time with my husband and son on a sandy beach. In the afternoon, I would watch my 9-year-old son play town/club soccer and then close out the day with a game of Monopoly with friends and family.

Q: What’s the most important thing that you want students to know about you?
A: I absolutely love advising and helping students. I am here for you, so don’t hesitate to reach out, ask questions or just simply say hello. I am looking forward to working with you and to being a part of your team to make your journey at GPS a success.

Meet your enrollment advisor

If you’ve ever reached out to learn more about a course or program at Brandeis GPS, you’ve most likely had a conversation with Christie Barone.

Christie Barone - Faces of Brandeis GPS Online Education - Brandeis GPS BlogAs GPS’s senior enrollment coordinator, Christie works diligently with prospective students to help them decide if online learning at GPS is the right fit for them. She also advises students who have taken GPS professional development courses.

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Meet our newest student advisor

Faces of GPS | Q&A with Erin Flood

As we prepare to kick off the fall 2016 term, we’re excited to introduce you to one of the newer faces of GPS. Erin Flood, a GPS student advisor, joined us in July, and we are thrilled to have someone so dedicated and passionate about her work on our team.

Graduate Professional Studies: Welcome, Erin! Let’s start with an easy question — where are you from?

Erin Flood: I grew up in a small town in rural upstate New York, about an hour north of Syracuse.

GPS: What drew you to higher education?

EF: I’m passionate about learning for learning’s sake, and I also view educational access and success as an important social justice issue. In college, I studied psychology and religion. I was interested in how people behave and make decisions. While I was an undergrad and even in high school, I had always worked in education-related fields. My first job out of college was advising and preparing high school students from Dorchester, Mass, for college. I really enjoyed working with my students and ended up staying in touch with a lot of them throughout their college experience. I was really disappointed to hear about the lack of support many of them faced once they got to college. They didn’t always have someone they could turn to, specifically in terms of academic and career advising, since they didn’t necessarily know how to navigate higher ed, or what they wanted to do after graduation. This cemented my interest in advising even more. Between college and grad school, I worked for a few different universities and education-related non-profits, and then I went to grad school for an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology. I like working directly with students, and being at GPS in this role has offered me that opportunity.

Erin with two of her proud Dorchester Academy graduates (Karlos and Iyana, Class of 2011)

Erin with two of her proud Dorchester Academy graduates (Karlos and Iyana, Class of 2011)

GPS: Did you come straight out of your master’s program to Brandeis GPS?

EF: No, I worked at a community college in a rural area in Massachusetts immediately before joining GPS. Prior to that I was doing research, but I missed direct service and decided to go back to advising.

GPS: What are you most looking forward to here?

EF: Hands down getting to know my students. I can’t wait to learn more about what they’re excited about, what they’re learning at GPS, what their plans are. I’m looking forward to being useful to them. In advising, your students’ goals become your goals, so I’m excited to find out my students’ goals and, by extension, my own.

GPS: What is one thing you want your students to know about you?

EF: That I’m so excited to be here! That I genuinely care about my students and what they’re doing. I am open to helping them in any way I can. To my students: if you think of something that you want me to do, or if you have a question about something but you’re not really sure if that’s my job, reach out!

Faces of GPS is an occasional series that profiles Brandeis University Graduate Professional Studies students, faculty and staff. Find more Faces of GPS stories here.

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