Newman Counseling Interns Model Growth Mindset

Our counseling department under the direction of Rebecca Witte has the good fortune to have tapped into the practice of sponsoring and supervising Counseling Interns from local universities. This year we are proud to have found Nour Abduljawad, a student who is pursuing a Master's degree in Human Development and School Counseling at Harvard University, and Alex Giannaros, who is a Senior at Boston University, pursuing her Bachelor’s in Education and Human Development. Both have been making connections around school and are helping out in a variety of aspects of our programs. 

To serve as their introduction to our parent community and in sync with our month’s Cor ad Cor theme of Growth Mindset and Productive Struggle, we are thrilled to shine our Community Spotlight on these two dedicated young women. Our students are learning a lot from them, and we think parents will also enjoy their stories as exemplars of what our Newman students can accomplish with growth mindsets. 

 

Nour, born in the United Kingdom, raised in Saudi Arabia, and university educated in the US, comes to Newman as a deeply globally-minded person. She embodies what it means to navigate her early academic and professional life with a growth mindset. Spending all of her secondary school time with her family in Saudi and the UK, and then deciding to go to the US for college was a big step. While at first, Nour’s dream career was in hospitality—she even got into her dream university in Switzerland—during the latter part of her Senior year, she started to pivot. She realized that she could carry her love of baking with her wherever she ended up but that her growing concern about mental health as a cultural stigma within her Arab culture was calling her to action. She had always been interested in the human mind, how people think and feel. Studying psychology, while also stretching herself socially and emotionally, would guide her to understand others and to ultimately help others find social and emotional strength. 

When asked how else she has embraced the growth mindset that we embrace at Newman, Nour shared a story about working in a lab under the direction of a TA who muddled the communication between Nour and the head professor, ultimately ending in a way that felt unproductive to Nour. While she loved the lab, she felt that working in a different lab would be better even if it meant a transition and having to communicate her wishes directly. 

One aspect of dealing with stretching oneself that comes from Nour’s experience is that she has learned that it’s more comfortable to take risks and to step outside of one's comfort zone when one also can hold onto traditions and friendship. Her college friends became like family—friends and sisters—since her own family was so far away and with this anchor, she felt emboldened to take on new challenges. 

Just a couple months ago, Nour has again started a new chapter here in Boston. That decision and transition was not clear and simple, as sadly, last spring her father passed away—at the same time Nour needed to face a decision about leaving her family in Saudi Arabia for her studies at Harvard. Her father had known she was accepted to Harvard and was so proud. As she boarded the plane bound for this next chapter, she definitely carried him and continues to carry him in her heart for inspiration.

 

Alex Giannaros was born and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts. She went to Tabor Academy and is currently getting Bachelors in Education and Human Development at Boston University.  She is spending her fall term doing her practicum with us at Newman, working on projects within Student Life, Dorm Life, Staff/Student Wellness. One of her areas of focus is to research programming in these areas in other schools around the Boston area. 

 

Alex realized at a young age that she wanted to be a resource for other young people:“when [she]was younger [she] didn't have a role model or somebody that [she] felt close to.” She felt sometimes that she had to conform to certain expectations—like a dress-code that pushed dresses and skirts—that made her feel uncomfortable. Despite struggling with a  school culture that felt a bit foreign, Alex learned the values of both finding friends and engaging in productive struggle. As a boarding student and athlete, she kept her eyes on the horizon, knowing that the opportunities were big even in the face of some discomfort. Along the way, she also discovered that the space boarding gave her from her family members ironically helped her develop closer relationships with them. She in fact credits the support of her family as helping her stay the course. The theme of embracing productive struggle as being more comfortable in the context of a supportive group of friends or family emerges again.

 

Given that “school is a place that students have to be…[Alex] want[s] to create an environment for students to feel comfortable being themselves.” Her interest in Student Life and Wellness is about being proactive as opposed to reactive. She notes that some schools may overemphasize a focus on responding to behaviors without understanding or trying to remedy the whys of them. On the other hand, Newman programming that promotes student connection, self-advocacy, and wellness will alleviate needs to address behavioral problems because they will be diminished. 

When not at Newman or in classes at BU, Alex is very busy as a player for (an hour of lifting and three hours of practice, daily) and Captain of the Boston University Girls Basketball team. With an active growth mindset, she feels she is always learning more about herself and leadership—in the area of basketball but applicable to many other areas of her life. She has found that communicating with her fellow players is not a one-size-fits-all situation. At the same time she is a student-athlete at BU, she is helping coach our Newman Girls’ AA Basketball team. In a coaching role for the first-time, she is excited to be able to ask for lots of feedback both from the other coaches (some of whom she knew as a player) and the girls themselves (in terms of what they like or don’t like). She is teaching our Newman student-athletes self-advocacy through soliciting their opinions. 

When asked what next, Alex has a refreshing response: she is staying present-focused because she trusts that will lead her to where she wants to end up. When not dribbling, lifting, researching, or studying, one of her favorite past-times is to color in a coloring book—joyfully and calmly filling in the spaces and shapes while her future continues to unfold. Likewise, we are lucky to have Alex helping to create and hold similar spaces of wellness for our Newman students.