“Micaela thank you for being my college adviser, one of my besties. Thanks for dealing with my craziness.”
Micaela Campbell is reading thank you notes from the bulletin board in her office. Among the notes is an array of cards, drawings and pictures.
“I put those up there just as a reminder to myself that this is important work and I do have an impact,” she says.
Campbell is an adviser for Hugh M. Cummings High School in Burlington. Before that, she was a student at UNC studying English and African American studies. When Campbell graduated in 2021, she joined the Carolina College Advising Corps.
In the program, recent UNC graduates are sent to schools that have a large population of low-income, first-generation and underrepresented high school students. Director Ni-Eric Perkins says the goal is to increase those students’ representation at colleges like UNC.
“These are rural counties,” says Perkins. “These are urban counties. These are small towns and cities where there’s an opportunity for us to really motivate and inspire young people who never dreamed of the opportunity to be able to enroll in a college or university.”
Outside of Campbell’s office and in front of the media center are more decorations: flags, each with a student’s name and a college they applied to.
One of the flags belongs to senior Alejandra Castro, applying to UNC-Chapel Hill. She says Campbell helped her realize what options were available for her.
“I was very confused on how to apply to colleges, I didn’t know where to start,” says Castro. “I keep doubting myself to know what universities would be good for me.”
Homemade flags of different colleges Hugh M. Cummings High School students applied to line the wall outside the school’s media center.
Castro says that people around her also doubted that she could be the one to make it. Even though she has good grades and is enrolled in challenging classes.
“A lot of people doubted me before, going to harder schools, saying I’m not smart enough and all that,” Castro says. “Just going to [Campbell], she just kept pushing me to do it, it’s worth a shot to just try it out.”
Part of what fuels Campbell’s passion for her students is knowing what it is like to be in their shoes.
“A lot of my life looks like my students’ lives right now,” she says. “I worked multiple jobs when I was in high school. I didn’t really have anyone to help me through the process of applying to college.”
Her favorite part of the job is being able to be that person. Someone who can help students whose parents haven’t been to college before. Someone who can encourage students who don’t believe college is attainable. And just as someone to lean on and hang out with.
“We talk about life, we talk about Netflix,” says Campbell, “we talk about some of the more heavier things they might have been through that they haven’t talked to someone before. Just being that person that I didn’t have is my favorite part.”
Castro says being able to go to Campbell about her everyday stressors has helped her mental health.
“I usually go to Ms. Campbell just to have someone to talk to,” says Castro. “I do have extremely bad trust issues on other people. So, going to Ms. Campbell, it makes me feel really comfortable.”
Campbell says this is another important piece of the program. It isn’t just a pipeline to send students to UNC or other schools in the North Carolina System. It’s about doing what’s in their best interest.
“It’s about getting them somewhere that they are going to be comfortable after high school,” Campbell says. “Working with our career development coordinator to work on job shadowing, working with the military recruiters if that’s their option.”
For Marilyn Ramirez, another senior at the high school, that path is community college. She says she eventually wants to become a nurse.
“I would be one of the first generations to go to college in my family,” says Ramirez. “So, from the start, I really didn’t know what to expect or what I had to do. But I would say Ms. Campbell made the whole process very easy.”
Campbell says encouraging students like Castro and Ramirez is what makes the job meaningful to her.
“Even if my little office can be a safe space for them for 10 minutes,” she adds, “that does make an impact. That’s what keeps me going. That’s what’s inspired my career path. And overall, I think it’s changed my life a little bit.
Not only has Campbell made an impact on students through this program but she’s also learned something about herself. Work like this is her passion and something she plans to continue doing after she returns to college to get a Masters in School Counseling.
This story was originally published on Carolina Connection, the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s student-run radio program.
Photo via Carolina College Advising Corps.
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