The writer had come in many times this semester, usually with resumes or cover letters for different internships. I had worked with him in probably my first co‐tutoring session a couple weeks ago, and he had the same resume/cover letter yesterday as he was working on then but was about to turn it in and wanted to do final revisions. That was cool to see the same piece after time had passed, to see the amount of work and thought he had put into it.
The "traditional" part of the session then ended fairly quickly because it was final review/comments, and he was confident that it was ready. Since we had time, and I knew that he was a frequent Center user, I asked him why he came so often and what he liked or disliked about the Center. He was super receptive to this, and immediately started going on a compliment train. He loves the variety of specializations that different assistants have ‐ he said that he is always confident that he can get any question answered. He tries to schedule with a variety of assistants to get different perspectives and said that every assistant is super personable and productive during their sessions, and they ask excellent questions. He especially talked about how he feels like every assistant wants to be there, they're dedicated to the session and it's not just a commitment for them. He mentioned that his favorite assistant (though they are all good) and said NUMEROUS kind and generous things about her.
After that, we talked more about his resume, but at the end of the session, he opened about his writing without me prompting; he discussed high levels of anxiety over making appointments, and that he feels like his piece needs to be finished and edited before he brings it in. He worries that anything unfinished will look sloppy and reflect poorly on him as a writer. I did my best to assure him that we can and would love to see his writing at any stage, and are even available for just brainstorming, but however he felt comfortable sharing his work was perfect for us. We then talked about how he was starting to write creatively, and he told me about the fantasy piece he was writing and asked for creative writing focused assistants that could help him out with that.
My day was made from that session.
