College is about finding your group, your community where you can be yourself, that’s how you grow as a person.
Ten years after graduating from high school Jolie Streeter-Duczkowski, ’21, decided it was time to go back to school and enrolled in a local community college.
“I was a teen mom,” Streeter-Duczkowski said. “For ten years, from the ages of 18 to 28, I had this feeling like I had wasted all my potential (in terms of my education). I felt that I had done everything wrong.”
It was through volunteering and helping others in her Taunton community that her mindset began to shift.
She volunteered at a language learners community center, teaching English to non-English speaking students.
“Helping others that were also feeling vulnerable helped me see that by empowering others, I can empower myself,” she said.
After transferring to Bridgewater State University to study English with a minor in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), she signed up to work as a tutor in the school’s Academic Achievement Center.
“I like doing two things, helping people and answering questions,” she said. “So, I found teaching and tutoring to be a good fit.”
After earning her undergraduate degree, she decided to continue her education and is currently enrolled in BSU’s graduate TESOL program.
As a student she gravitated toward helping multilingual students and worked in what was then called second language services.
Over time, she began to believe the name of the center was confusing, so Streeter-Duczkowski set out to change it and hopefully clear things up.
This past year, thanks to her efforts, the name of the center was changed to, “Tutoring for Multilingual Students.”
The name change has yielded positive results.
“We have fewer people coming in for mistaken reasons,” she said. “It helps to ensure that appointment times are being reserved for the correct type of help.”
To further help students, Streeter-Duczkowski organized BSU’s first multilingual fair in March. She collaborated with the Martin Richard Institute for Social Justice, student-run organizations, BSU’s navigator program, the Pride Center, and other community members to pull it all together.
More than 80 students attended the event where they learned about the different resources BSU offers, and there were also raffles, prizes, and gift bags.
All in all, it was a success.
As she works toward her master’s degree, Streeter-Duczkowski will continue to support BSU students, creating spaces for those who may be struggling.
“College is about finding your group, your community where you can be yourself, that’s how you grow as a person,” she said.
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