Pros
My direct colleagues and students were what kept me at SEO for as long as I did - people were genuinely invested in helping students access higher education. I genuinely value the relationships I got to build with my direct manager (who served as a mentor to me) and my fellow program staff/advisors (who all clearly poured their hearts into our students). I will also acknowledge that there were a handful of valuable professional development opportunities, which did push me to grow and take on larger responsibilities during my time with the organization.
Kontras
The biggest drawback of working at SEO (and the reason I ultimately left) is the disconnect between national leadership's decisions and the realities of our staff and students. When I joined the organization, there was a directive to expand our program to serve many more students per grade level (five times as many, to be exact). Although this would clearly have an impact on advisor-student ratios, there was no guidance on how to restructure roles so workloads would be sustainable. Additionally, despite the expanding scope of many roles within the organization, my colleagues often struggled to find opportunities for progression: one of my colleagues mentioned that they were advised to apply elsewhere if they were looking for a change in title or salary.
In my last year with the organization, I was informed there would be a freeze on expanding full-time advisor roles: as a result, my caseload doubled overnight. In the fall, I often had to work until 10pm or 11pm. Despite my best efforts to set boundaries and work as efficiently as possible, the work of handling student emergencies and helping students meet time-sensitive deadlines still felt like it fell entirely on my shoulders. Aside from my colleagues and direct manager, who did what they could to support me, nobody in executive leadership ever reached out to check-in with me or offer me support, despite knowing the impact this hiring decision had on me and my teammate.
I began having panic attacks and breakdowns privately at work due to the pressure I was under. When I finally disclosed this to a member of the executive leadership team, after months of struggling quietly, their response was to suggest that my struggles were not due to my workload but due to my failure to set boundaries: effectively, it was my fault for caring too much. Although I'd been willing to accept challenging workloads and work conditions for years, this response cemented that despite how much I cared about the mission and our students, SEO was no longer a place I could in good conscience work for.