After receiving her master’s degree in justice, law and society from American University, Vanessa Correa didn’t think she’d end up having a career in higher education.
“I spent some time doing research on crime and looking at crime and different programs that were created to address crime and [doing] lots of research, but I really missed that personal touch of working one-on-one with other people,” Correa says.
The help she received from people who pushed her to be the greatest she could be played a huge role in her decision to work as a counselor for students transitioning from high school to college, including first-generation college students.
Today she thrives on guiding and assisting students transitioning into higher education in her role as the associate director for first-generation initiatives in the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education (ODIME) at George Mason University (GMU). Correa began working at GMU in April 2017 and is enjoying meeting students and faculty and gaining training skills to help meet students’ needs.
“I really do look forward to what’s to come, and I’m very much looking forward to continuing to work with the students,” she says.
She is also the program director for the Student Transition Empowerment Program (STEP), a GMU summer program that focuses on first-generation students transitioning into college.
“Mason had been on my radar for a while because of the good work that’s being done here. I started to look a little bit more into Mason’s students and the support it has provided to students here,” Correa says. “So finding out that Mason students graduate at the same rate regardless of race or ethnicity, so graduation rates are the same for Black students, Latino students, Asian students as their White counterparts really made me think, ‘Wow, Mason’s doing something right,’ and the opportunity to not just come to Mason but then to work with the first gen population, for me it felt like a natural combination.”
