Hannah Huff joins us for this episode.  If you are going to be a student in the Vet Tech program you will most assuredly be talking to Hannah or another Academic Advisor here at Appalachian State. Hannah shares the ways in which she supports her students as well as her advice for navigating this fully online program. 

Transcript:

Dave Blanks:

This is Vet Tech Talk, a podcast about Appalachian State University's online four-year Bachelor of Science in Veterinary Technology degree program.

Hello there. I'm Dave Blanks, and I work here at App State in University Communications. On this episode, we're joined by Hannah Huff. Hannah has been affiliated with Appalachian State for the past seven years as a student, a graduate assistant, and now an academic advisor as well. She graduated in 2019 with her Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Human Services, and then returned to App in 2020 to pursue graduate school. She graduated in 2022 with her Master of Arts in Student Affairs Administration, and she has a background in academic advising from her graduate assistantship in the Advising and Orientation Center, as well as experience serving college students using theory-to-practice frameworks, which we get into in the conversation today.

In this role currently, Hannah is very excited to expand her advising skill set to learn about the veterinary profession and to support students as they navigate this fully online program. Now here is my conversation with Hannah. Hey Hannah. How's it going?

Hannah Huff:

Hi, good. How are you?

Dave Blanks:

I'm great. Thank you for coming down today. We appreciate you being here. Let's start out with what's your job at Appalachian State? What do you do here? You're an academic advisor, but specifically for the Vet Tech program, correct?

Hannah Huff:

Right. So I am an academic advisor for the Vet Tech program, which is in the College of Arts and Sciences. So, my position is actually pretty unique in that I am split between the College of Arts and Sciences and what's called the Cash Office, and then the Vet Tech team. So, I have my own caseload of Vet tech students, but I also get to learn all of the roles that go into the College of Arts and Science advising and work with second degree students, work with readmission students and learn all the processes and procedures there as well, so I get a good, well-rounded set of skills with this.

Dave Blanks:

Gotcha. So with Tech, you're advising 70 students. That seems to me like a lot of people to be advising, but I understand it's kind of a small caseload for you.

Hannah Huff:

Yeah, it's generally pretty small. In my previous role as a graduate assistant, I had at one time about a hundred, maybe a little bit more than that, but 70 right now, and that'll probably increase over the coming semesters when we have more students join the program and more students actually officially declare their major.

Dave Blanks:

Gotcha.

Hannah Huff:

Right now I'm coasting at 70, but we'll get a little bit more over time. All right.

Dave Blanks:

Good plan. So I'm a student, or I want to be a student in the Vet Tech program. How would I encounter you?

Hannah Huff:

Yeah, so generally, I will be the one who reaches out to students in terms of making appointments. I do have students who reach out to me with general questions that they have, either about their classes or about things at App State and how things kind of work here at the school because-

Dave Blanks:

These are students already enrolled?

Hannah Huff:

Already enrolled. Yes. And there were students who were interested in the program who weren't yet enrolled, who were still contacting me, asking me questions. So, I would be able to point them in the right direction or give them whatever answer I could to help them. Obviously, we want them to join the program. We're very excited about it. And anything I can do to encourage them to apply or encourage them to enroll in their classes, I'm going to help them do.

Dave Blanks:

And I see they probably found you through the website, which is vet tech.appstate.edu. But there you are right there with your two doggos. Okay, so they would end up coming to you and did you say that every student is required actually?

Hannah Huff:

Yes. So every student will be required to meet with me for advising to get their PIN number for registration for the next semester. So, we will talk through classes for the next semester. I also have made planners for the student, so I've kind of mapped out a rough idea of their progression through the degree so that they have a rough idea of what classes to take in certain semesters and how long it will take them to graduate based on any transfer credit that they have, kind of what they're starting with and those sorts of things.

Dave Blanks:

Gotcha. So are you dealing with students who are having academic problems? Say there's a student who's really struggling with one class. Is that somebody that's going to come to you or that you will reach out to, or how does that work?

Hannah Huff:

Yeah, absolutely. So during my advising appointments, I always like to ask students, how are you doing this semester? What is going well? What are you struggling with? What challenges are you facing? And if they are having any issues with a class, if they're not understanding content, if they have other things going on in their personal life that's kind of inhibiting them in their class, I'm there to help connect them with resources on campus. And maybe it's the tutoring center, maybe it's peer academic coaching, maybe it's the counseling center. Whatever I can do to kind of point them in the right direction, I can be that for that student.

Dave Blanks:

Awesome. Advice for students who are joining the program?

Hannah Huff:

Yeah, I would say anybody who's interested, reach out to the team on the website. If you see Virginia on there, she's the director. If you see me, reach out and introduce yourself, say that you're interested, let us know, like, "Hey, I've worked in the field for 20 years. I would love to come back to school, or I really want to shift gears in terms of my career. I would love to come join your program." Just introduce yourself. We love that. And we will get you set up in the right direction in terms of deadlines to apply and reviewing transcripts and those sorts of things.

Dave Blanks:

So email's the best way.

Hannah Huff:

Email's the best way or phone call, but students tend to gravitate towards email more often than not.

Dave Blanks:

Scary to talk to people, isn't it? We're doing it right now. So what about somebody who is already in the program? What would be your advice to that individual?

Hannah Huff:

I would say kind of the same thing. Reach out to your contacts, make sure you know everybody on the team, know who does what so that you can always ask for help when you need it. There's no problem in asking for help. That's what we're here for. We're here to help you. We're here to help guide you, and we love talking to students. That's kind of why we're all in this. So just make sure you know who's on the team.

Also, utilize your peers. Your peers might have other experiences that you don't, and you might be able to gain some perspective from them as well. So just make sure you know who your contacts are. Also, look at App State's resources. Even though you are an online student, you do have a lot of resources available to you. So look at those resources and see what you have available to you that might help in any kind of situation that you're in.

Dave Blanks:

So how did you end up getting in this program? What brought you to the veterinary technology program? I don't know. Was it something that you were passionate about, or?

Hannah Huff:

Yeah. I mean, so when I was in grad school, our final semester was dedicated to job searching. I always knew that I would love to stay at App State.

Dave Blanks:

Sure.

Hannah Huff:

I've been here for so long, and I've got great connections here. So any kind of new advisor position that was being advertised, I would apply. And the more that I looked into vet tech, the more I saw I could really grow in this position because it's a brand new program and I get to be a part of shaping that. That's something that a lot of advisors don't get the chance to do, and I'm already seeing that I have a very strong voice on this team, and I can really shape how this program turns out, which is very cool.

Dave Blanks:

Yeah, I'm excited just hearing you talk about that. You don't have to pick, "Oh, well, this is how we used to do it," or, "This is the way it's always been done." No, you don't have that to deal with. I mean, you are under the College of Arts and Sciences, so they have their own practices and stuff, and there's stuff that you have to do. But I've heard the same sort of thing from Mary Beth McKee. When we talked to Mary Beth, she was really excited because it was a new program. Everybody's got that energy. So tell me about these two dogs here that I see on the Vet tech site. These are animals that are important to you in your life?

Hannah Huff:

Yes. Those are my dogs back home, my family dogs. So my chocolate lab, that's Bruno, and then Darby, she is a rescue. And we're not quite sure exactly what she is, but-

Dave Blanks:

She's hound-ish, right?

Hannah Huff:

She's definitely got some hound.

Dave Blanks:

Oh, yeah.

Hannah Huff:

We always say she's a lab hound, but I really want to send her DNA off to get tested