91探花

When describing his hometown in Vermont, senior online Human Services major Ryan Rodriguez paints a very idyllic picture. Envision a cute small town, nestled in green rolling hills as far as the eye can see, with particularly beautiful autumns and winters. He moved to North Carolina in 2008 but is still strongly influenced by his childhood in Vermont.

“I have been back and have seen what the opioid crisis has done to these small communities in the area I grew up. I have lost people that were in my classes who passed away from opioid and fentanyl use,” he said. “I’ve always had this passion for counseling and helping people, especially when it comes to habitual thought and behaviors.”

Most of Rodriguez’s professional experience involves working in restaurants, but that interest in counseling always remained in the back of his mind. He said that college was not often discussed in his household growing up, but in 2020 when COVID-19 swept through the country forcing many people into their homes, Rodriguez began to think more critically about his goals and what he wanted to achieve in his life.

He said that during this time of self-reflection, going back to school and earning a degree was a thought he continued to return to. He realized that was the route he would need to take if he wanted to achieve his goal of becoming a substance use counselor. He decided that as soon as he was able, he would enroll, and in 2023 he graduated from Mitchell Community College with an associate degree in Human Services.

“I thought that helping people with substance use disorders would be a better avenue for me to go down. My father was an alcoholic, but he was in recovery my whole life, so he did well. I saw what recovery did for people and their families, and I just wanted to be a part of that for others,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez found that many of the techniques used to successfully treat substance use disorders could be applied in his own life. He did well in his associate program, graduating with a 4.0. He received the Academic Excellence Award from the North Carolina Community College Association. He began running marathons.

“When it comes to things like substance use disorder, and trying to change thought and behavior patterns, when you start to have these victories and little wins, you really can build upon them and it galvanizes you to want to work for more,” Rodriguez said. “I think for a lot of people, when they break that cycle of addictive behavior, and they start to see that they are regaining control over their lives, that’s the biggest motivator for them, is seeing the results of their changes.”

Seeing the results of his own changes also motivated him to go for more, and Rodriguez made the decision to continue his studies in the human services field through the Lees-91探花 online bachelor’s program. Taking classes online allowed him to achieve this milestone in a flexible setting, while maintaining full-time employment.

Now that he is nearing the end of his bachelor's career, Rodriguez is looking to the future, excited by the life transition he will be able to make with his newly minted degree. Following graduation, he will begin looking for entry-level counseling work, where he hopes to finally achieve his goal of helping people like his dad and his former classmates achieve those small victories and regain control of their own lives.

“I was a little more apprehensive when I began. I was optimistic, but I was very eager and just grateful for the opportunity, and I think through the course of the education I have received I have become a lot more confident not only in my ability, but in my knowledge and what I bring to the table,” he said. “I’m genuinely grateful for the professors that I’ve had over the last few years. You can tell that they have a genuine affinity and love for what they do, it’s not just a position of dispensing knowledge, but of building future human service workers.”