Connections

Hi! I am Doug Cooper and I am an advisor here at Granite State College. I have worked here at GSC for two years now, and I am still learning new things about the college. I think I have always wanted to be an advisor at a college. As an undergraduate, I worked at summer orientation at my university, where I helped new students who were overwhelmed with the new information and paperwork and decisions in front of them. To see some of the tension disappear from their eyes and shoulders meant a lot to me, and I think I have tried to carry forward that spririt of helping out and explaining how things work.

I love coffee, and I drink coffee at pretty much any hour of the day, which is something I have in common with many of our students coming in for their evening college classes. I try to convince myself that I genuinely enjoy just the taste and warmth of coffee rather than relying on the caffeine; more likely, it's both.

In my spare moments, I enjoy documentaries, crossword and sudoku puzzles, and trivia - very geeky stuff to be sure, but I am always up for a chance to learn something new. As this college used to be called the College for Lifelong Learning, I feel like the lifelong learning applies just as much to me as an advisor as it does to our adult students. I find that there are things I can learn even about things that I thought I already knew well. For example, on of my favorite movies is "A Christmas Story," and even after watching it a couple of times every year for twenty or more years, and about 50 or 60 times total, I still get some lines for just the first time now, and it enhances my enjoyment of future viewings.

Having something to say and helping to explain something, such as how a new student can take college classes online, or what behavioral science classes make the most sense for electives are important to me, so I hope this blog can help do that.