Welcome to the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education Podcast, the space where education meets resilience.
I'm Dr. Joey Weisler, and in each episode, we dive deep into the personal stories of educators, students,
leaders, and frontline advocates who are navigating the complexities within modern education.
Whether you're just starting your teaching journey or are a seasoned professional looking for inspiration,
we'll explore how to foster meaningful change, prevent burnout, and build trauma-informed communities within our schools.
Now, let's take a seat at the front of the classroom as we get started.
Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. I'm so excited to welcome Mario Steven Cornejo into today's conversation.
And Mario is the Assistant Director of Academic Achievement in the Center for Student Success at St. John's University.
And Mario is also a first-generation Salvadorian-American professional with a powerful story on navigating burnout and building resilience.
And Mario's journey through nonprofit work, youth coaching, and higher education offers invaluable lessons on supporting students and embracing mental health awareness.
So, Mario, welcome to the podcast.
Hi, Joey. Thank you so much for having me.
So great to have you. So, Mario, the first thing I wanted to ask is about your role.
As the Assistant Director of Academic Achievement in the Center for Student Success at St. John's,
what do you work on in that space and what led you to that particular position?
Yes. And so my role as Assistant Director of Academic Achievement involves working under the Department of the Center for Student Success at St. John's University.
Previously to the past year or two, it used to be referred as the Freshman Center.
And so we work under the department that supports all first-year incoming students at St. John's.
My role also works under a sub-department under the Center for Student Success that's called the Academic Achievement Team,
specifically working in the University Learning Commons, which is the tutoring center of the university.
And so me and my team, the Academic Achievement Team, help to hire staff, student workers,
and build a team that can provide tutoring services for first-year students, but also all students of all years at St. John's University.
Yeah, thank you so much for that. And Mario and I were able to network in the fall 2024 semester,
most in part because Mario had a chance to speak with my first-year freshman seminar course and help acclimate them to the university as well.
And Mario, as a bridge to your own personal story, I wanted to ask, what advice could you give to other college professors who might be listening,
or even high school teachers who are working to ensure that their students feel acclimated and welcome to specifically a university environment?
I'd say to definitely, especially at the beginning, when a student is coming in, making sure we treat our students like individuals
and not just as a case number or a statistic or a metric.
And what I mean by that is from the moment a student comes into a university, no matter where they're from,
no matter what background or things like that they have coming in, a lot of times they may be a bit nervous or a bit unsure of what the next four years,
at least, of their life is going to be coming and entering a space.
And so typically, whether it be on the first day or the first week, a lot of the first people that those students can meet can have such a positive impact in their time in undergrad.
And so really taking note of building a positive and welcoming environment, asking the student, how are they, where are they from,
what are their goals that they have for the next four years or so, giving them an opportunity to meet someone directly,
or at least one person that can physically be with them or tell them that we're here to help them,
I think makes a big difference, especially from the start of a student's undergraduate career and further, to build a network for that student.
For sure. We need to have that partnership in which students and people around them in the university who have agency can help them feel comfortable, safe and acclimated.
And you mentioned the word network in terms of building a student's network.
But a lot of my own students in that class that we met earlier this year mentioned that one of their biggest concerns when starting college is actually trying to network and make friends amongst their peer groups.
So what advice would you give to college students who are listening here who are still lingering with that need to network and broaden the horizons within the university?
What's the best way for them to get involved? What can they do?
I think it could be easy to get a bit intimidated by the idea of networking.
I think especially from my experience growing up, when I would hear the word networking, I would think, 'oh, I need to go to a lot of the professional networking events where I know no one,
learn a one to two minute pitch about myself, memorize it, tell that to people, and then whoever I connect with, I can connect with'.
Yes, that is a big part of networking, but you can even start it so small and already with the network that you have existing, whether you see it or not, for example, students at this point are taking similar classes with other classmates.
And so it can be, for example, if you notice that you sit around the same people or you notice the same people around you taking a step, whether it be coming into class first thing in the morning or whenever the class starts and just asking any student,
'hey, what did you think of last week's class?' Or , 'hey, did you do X, Y, and Z assignment?' Or, 'what do you think of this content in class?' Or, 'how do you feel about this next exam?'
Some way to build that relationship with anyone and someone from the start to then get into if you want to, 'oh, what's your major? Oh, what are your academic and career goals in the future?'
It all doesn't have to happen at once and in one sitting, but it does take a first step. And usually the first step can be the hardest one. But once you take that step, then the next parts of that becomes easier.
And it feels more genuine because you're walking and talking with people that are either in the same boat, are doing the same things or taking the same classes, maybe are part of the same clubs as you.
So, again, really using the metaphorical network that you already have as students on campus, I think is a perfect first step to then build into that and realize the potential you have and realize the network that you already have and utilizing that further.
Yeah, and I can echo that because one of the most important ways that I tell my own students to get involved is to just be present in the classroom community.
I said it starts when you're in class, participate and or listen to the voices that are participating and gravitate towards those who have ideas that you can collaborate or synergize with.
And once those minds come together, just in those four walls of the classroom, it can greatly expand very quickly outside of the classroom.
I wanted to also ask about the different hats that you wear in terms of you're also a student right now, right?
Yes.
So I wanted to hear about that and tell us a little bit more about what you're doing now as a student and how those skills blend into your role as the assistant director.
That is a great question because the mental dialogue, especially before coming into this fall semester, my first semester entering grad school was, 'oh, man, how am I going to navigate this again after it's been a minute since I last took classes myself as a student?'
And I graduated in 2018, so this was before the pandemic.
And so remote learning and online learning and things like that, even though I've helped students over the past few years with finding ways to navigate that, I hadn't really had the first hand experience of navigating that myself.
But I knew in the long run, it was really going to help me in not only my own work, but how I help students.
But then there was always that little bit of uncertainty about how I would navigate taking classes with a full time job for the first time, balancing my work and school now with my personal life.
That was really the consistent conversation I was having in my mind.
And so this semester was kind of a really interesting experience of navigating different points where at the beginning, I was very hyper aware and was very structured with my time.
I felt that I was really doing well to balance time studying with time that I had for my own personal commitments with work.
Then when midterm season hit, things started getting a bit pushed and lines started getting a bit blurry in terms of the sort of mental boundaries that I had between that.
And so it did get to points where I just sort of felt like I had to really pivot and there were times where I just sort of felt like I was mentally a bit struggling and feeling a bit burnt out myself.
And so it took a lot of checking in with myself through those points to know that it's not all going to be perfect.
It's not all just a straight line up in terms of the path to success and growth.
It can be a whole roller coaster, it can be circles going up and down, the highs and lows that can all happen even within the context of a semester.
But as long as you keep going and push through and find people that can help you and that can support you and connecting with your own values and goals,
then it makes all the difference in the long run to continue and build upon what you have established and what you are establishing,
which is why now I'm at a point where it's only been one semester,
but I feel that I do take a sense of pride in getting through this first semester to now then take the next step and use this experience to help me and to also build my skills in terms of how I can help students even further navigate academic challenges of their own,
sharing personal stories of my own that can also resonate and in a way self-disclose that can help build positive rapport with students navigating similar struggles in an academic setting.
Yeah, you remind me of one of my favorite shows, "What About Bob?"
And in the movie, they say that you need to take baby steps.
So I love mentioning that just the importance of your survival, if you will, is taking those baby steps.
And it makes me think about how you've already spoken about navigating burnout, especially within your first semester and both of these roles as a student and as an assistant director.
And I want to ask what were some pivotal experiences that taught you the importance of finding resilience in those moments and how do you continue to maintain them going into what is now going to be your second semester of that work?
Yeah, I think it's been helping me in the recent times that I feel that I've been going through burnout.
And a lot of it, I realize, also comes from my early days in a sense of my professional career, even though for me, it doesn't feel that long.
It was only maybe like five years ago that I first started working professionally.
But even then, I do remember in the first month of one of my first full time jobs in the field of nonprofit, there was a point where I experienced such heavy burnout, especially at the time that I wasn't familiar with before,
where I just sort of broke down really for the first time in front of someone else that was not a family member of mine.
And the context of it was that there was a major quarterly deadline that I needed to follow in terms of fulfilling certain reports in the field of work that I was doing.
And most of it fell on me at the time, and it was within the first month of me starting this job.
And this job didn't really have a specific job description.
It was a new title, which also made it worthwhile challenge for me sort of creating that as I was learning the ropes.
But then it kind of became to a point where I was being asked repeatedly for certain deadlines.
And it just felt that the only way I was going to achieve them was by staying past five o'clock, working nights, sending emails, doing phone calls, doing outreach during my own personal time.
In the beginning, I was like, OK, I need to just do this because it needs to get done.
It's being asked of me. I didn't really know how to not say no, but be wary of my boundaries and really understand the consequences of me sort of putting that to the side.
And it took that moment where I was on a phone call with my direct supervisor and she actually noticed that I wasn't my regular self.
And the moment I knew that she saw that, it's sort of like the wall just came down and I vented everything about how I was feeling.
I was worried about whether or not I was fit for the job, if I would get fired.
But then for me, that was a pivotal moment and something that I've used for the most parts in which I felt this way,
because for me, it's a reminder of the fact that it's also OK to ask for help.
And for me, that's one of the biggest struggles I've had, even up to this point, in terms of understanding that you can't take it all on your own.
And it's better to work smarter, not harder.
And really, in terms of navigating burnout, learning how to check in with yourself as well to then realize that if I go and continue through this path, it's only going to bring me down.
And if it brings me down, the quality of my work is also going to go down.
So really, there's no long term benefit to putting yourself through the constant hustle of thinking I need to work myself to the ground to get these objectives done.
And so for me, it's been understanding those points, checking in with myself, knowing when to ask for help.
But also, especially as I've gotten older, asking myself, what are my values?
What are my goals? What are the things that are important to me in life?
Because that has also helped me to navigate times where I feel like I'm reaching burnout, but also reminding myself this is my why.
So not in this sense, I'm going to just put my feelings of burnout to the side, but it's a reminder of why I'm continuing in this path.
Yeah, and a lot of my students will come to me at the very end of the semester, like during my final exam week.
And they'll come to me with a very low grade in the class on that borderline D or F or as I pointed to be the F minus sometimes.
And they will ask me for ways to improve in the course.
And when I say, well, I mean, you're coming to me in week 16 of our semester, I'm not quite sure what I can do at this point.
Their answer is usually, 'I wanted to come to you earlier, but I was scared.'
And even if I asked them at midterms, they'll say I was too scared to respond to you.
What advice would you normally give to students who come to tutoring with that attitude as to I want help, but I'm afraid to ask for it?
What's the best advice you can give to students that are trying to still find success, but find fear in their resources to do so?
Yeah, I believe the best way for the students in terms of really navigating and understanding what are those barriers,
the mental barriers to getting that support is throwing it back to the student in a sense or asking them what are they afraid of or what are the things that are stopping them from getting that help,
whether it be at the beginning of the semester or any point that they need that help and having the student really do that internal work in a sense,
even if it's for the first time, even if it means having those awkward silences where a student might think, oh, I've never I've never been asked that question.
I've never had to really think about what it would mean to, for example, not get an A in the class, because I've had conversations with students where in high school, for example,
they're used to getting A's and B's.
And so in college, the narrative is it's a different ballgame.
And part of that is true.
And so there can be a lot of times where for students, a lot of that pressure and fear comes from perceptions, especially academically,
where they're entering a space where they're going from getting A's and A minuses to now possibly being at risk to getting C's or maybe they got a B minus for the first time.
And that is scary.
They're so used to letting their grade be a definition of themselves and their intelligence because they've grown up in an academic system that kind of encourages
that or has them work towards that end.
But there's more to your academic career than just your grades.
Yes, they're still important, but then there are other factors.
There's other commitments.
Students might have to take on part time jobs.
They want to be involved in clubs.
It's a time to also discover yourself and more about yourself and who you are.
But for a lot of students, it's the first time that they've ever had to really deal with that.
And sometimes, especially in the first gen student community, they don't have family members or people that have gone through the ropes of it to tell them, hey, it's going to be OK.
Or yes, you got a B minus to see on this exam, but it's the first one.
We can work towards the next midterm.
We can work towards the final.
You can also reach out to the professor.
There are ways to do that.
But sometimes a lot of students are intimidated.
I don't know how, or worst case, some professors are a bit distant and they don't necessarily do much outreach in terms of how to help students.
But that shouldn't discourage students from learning how to get that help and advocate for themselves.
And so this is the perfect opportunity for them to step into that field and learning how to not be discouraged by those really hard times.
Understandably so, it can be hard to think about the long term successes when you feel that in the moment there's so much pressure, there's so much new experiences and things that you're taking in that you don't know how to handle.
But a lot of times it takes checking in with yourself, connecting with times where you have to admit that, yes, this feels rough, but this doesn't define me.
The best help comes from the student getting that help themselves, as opposed to me or us saying, this is what you need help with, so go and do this.
I want to quote from Jen Rafferty, who aired a second with us back in November 2024 on the superhero narrative.
And what she says is that "your work does not define your worth".
And in thinking about that statement, I wanted to also ask, especially for you, Mario, and growing up in that very machismo culture,
how did you and how can students as well try to really challenge that stigma around mental health in our schools?
And what advice would you give to others who face similar barriers?
Yeah, so I'd like to first kind of give my definition of machismo, too, because I think it has a lot of different iterations and interpretations even within different cultures.
For myself in the Hispanic culture and for me, it's sort of meant an exaggerated, strong sense of masculine pride that a large part of it derives from exhibiting a sort of dominance and even aggression towards anything that's perceived socially to be inferior.
And again, in that social context, a lot of that can be an example of gender or socioeconomic status, sexuality, etc., etc.
In terms of navigating the stigma of mental health within the perspective of machismo, for me growing up in that culture,
it's learning how to be in tune with my mental health as much as I was in my physical health.
When I was in college, I started going to the gym, for example, and a mental note, I think it's also been an important time.
And I think for anyone, it's a great time to also put yourself through, in a sense, a metaphorical mental gym,
in a sense, where you practice checking in with your emotions, checking in with your thoughts,
and specifically the thoughts that cause certain feelings that you have in general,
and give yourself the space to feel comfortable with having all spectrum of emotions,
because especially under a machismo culture, a lot of young men, for example, are only given the space to release those emotions of anger and stress,
whether it be around their friends or around family, but there's not really much space to express sadness, to express anxiety, to express fear of uncertainty,
but we all experience those emotions at the end of the day.
For me, a big strategy that's helped me be in tune with that has been journaling.
For a lot of people, it can be a lot of different things, whether it be listening to music, playing music, playing sports,
navigating it from an individual level is a first step to then navigating it and advocating for positive mental health on a community level,
and then even farther than that in terms of policy, public policy,
so that more people that are experiencing similar feelings don't have to feel like they're going at it alone.
Also, for me, in terms of the advice that I can give for first generation students navigating higher education,
the first point, and I think I mentioned this already before, but just giving yourself grace,
it's been an important part of my life because I know it's one of the hardest things that I've struggled with in doing for myself,
and I know a lot of the reasons for that is because it's easier for me to think of the things that are on my plate,
the people that I feel depend on me, or at least the people around me that I know, or I believe my successes reflect on,
whether it be my family, the people that are around me, and my long-term goals,
it can feel that there's no space for mistakes, there's no space to take a pause in life,
there's no space sometimes to really check in with yourself without first checking in on the people around you,
but again, as I mentioned before, if you are not in a good place to even do that, then there's no point in trying,
in a sense where you need to first check in with yourself and be your own best friend, in a sense,
and that can be a very challenging and new aspect for a lot of people, but again, it takes small steps,
whether it be asking yourself, "how are you?" when you wake up in the morning, and before you go to bed,
asking yourself, "how are you? How was this day for you? What were the best parts of your day,
what were the least best parts of your day?", checking in with yourself as you would check in with a friend or best friend,
anyone that's important to you in your life, because over time, you then learn how to feel comfortable to give yourself that grace,
give yourself space to take time to be in tune with those emotions, because once you do that,
the next thing that you can do is then you can also find your communities,
find different communities of other students that are navigating similar struggles or navigating different struggles
that you can empathize with to then feel that you don't always have to take it alone,
because I know that a lot of times it can feel that when you're in the thick of things,
when you're in those rough patches of life, it can be very easy to want to self-isolate,
to stay away from people because you might feel that you might be a burden by sharing your struggles with others,
you'll only be bringing them down as opposed to finding people that want to help,
but really, again, in checking in with yourself, that'll help you find the right people that do care,
and again, they do care, and this goes in tune with the previous two points I mentioned,
but taking time to then not only give yourself grace and find the people that can connect with you,
but also find time to celebrate you, to celebrate who you are, because everyone has a unique story,
everyone has what's called an intersectionality of different identities, whether it be race, gender, sexuality,
ableness, things that define you, whether it's for quote-unquote good or quote-unquote bad, they have formed your life,
and they have formed the obstacles that you have overcome and the points to where you are at now,
and so that is something that is worth appreciating and celebrating, because again, if you're not doing it for yourself,
then it's going to feel very hard to find that recognition or appreciation elsewhere,
and that can be a very risky road where you're just seeking that validation from the outside world,
but that definitely needs to come from your inner self, your inner work,
because you will then have the confidence to take on any and all challenges that come your way,
and you'll also find people that will also appreciate those different identities of who you are and uniquenesses,
and will see that as your superpowers and not so much as things that hold you back in life.
That's a bit of a mic drop statement right there. I love it. I love it. Thank you.
And to our listeners, thank you again for joining us today to hear Mario's conversation,
and his dialogue is a reminder of the importance of staying together and being our own authentic selves when it comes to navigating our own journeys.
So if you've enjoyed today's episode or if you're moved by it, definitely feel free to follow us, leave a review,
and then until next time, let's be sure to keep the conversation alive to make small changes one step at a time.
Thank you for joining us on the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education podcast.
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Remember, together we can transform our scars into stars in education, one conversation at a time.