Ep. 6 - Jing Yao - Emerging Voices

Join Bri and Matt as they welcome Jing Yao, an academic advisor within University of British Columbia's Faculty of Arts whose journey runs from teaching test-prep in China to immigration advising, community college work at Douglas, and now student success at a research university. Jing opens up about empathetic advising, navigating academic concessions, supporting students after withdrawals, and helping students find majors that actually fit. She also shares how maternity leave has not paused her growth as well as leveling up in NACADA’s Emerging Leaders Program!

You’ll hear:

• Two-year vs. four-year advising—what truly changes (and what doesn’t)
• Practical language for hard conversations that restore confidence
• Real talk on redefining “your best” as a parent and professional
• How to turn curiosity into leadership, writing, and proposals that stick

A warm, hopeful episode packed with strategy and a Canadian sparkle ✨.

*Emerging Voices is a spinoff of the Adventures in Advising podcast!

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome to Emerging Voices. This is Matt Markin from CSU San Bernardino, and as always, I'm joined with...

Bri Harvie  
Hi everybody. I'm Bri Harvie from SAIT in Calvary.

Matt Markin  
And on today's episode, we get to interview our special guest today, and that's Jing Yao. Jing is an academic advisor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver, Canada. Before joining UBC, she worked at Douglas College, a two-year institution. Beginning in 2017 she started there as an international student immigration advisor, and discovered her passion for academic advising in 2019 originally from China, Jane came to Canada as an international student and earned her Master of Education Degree from the University of British Columbia in 2015 Jing is currently on maternity leave, enjoying time with her newborn. Despite being away from her regular duties, she remains actively engaged in the advising community. She is a mentee in the Emerging Leaders Program and participates in events organized by the first generation college student and social justice advising communities. She also recently became the British Columbia liaison for NACADA Region *. Jing, welcome.

Jing Yao  
Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Bri.

Matt Markin  
Thanks for joining us today. We're very excited for this interview, and you know, we just heard from your formal bio. So here's the first question for you, and that is, tell us more about your path, your journey in higher ed. What is your origin story in higher education?

Jing Yao  
Sure, so I guess I will share a little bit more about myself prior to coming to Canada. So before that, I was teaching English, so specifically test the prep courses back in China for three years. So those tests like are like IELTS, TOEFL, GMAT, SAT, and then I decided to pursue my master's degree. So I came to Canada, and then finished my Master of Education in teaching English as second language. And then after graduation, I found it was actually pretty challenging to find a job in the local market to compete with all the native speakers, and also most of the jobs for English teaching back then we're kind of, we have to start as part time. So I decided to change the past. I still wanted to work in education sector, but I guess teaching at that time was just not that they're realistic for me. So when I was searching for jobs, I found advisor this job title, and I went to look at the job description, I found it seems like very interesting to me, so I would like to give it a try. It was still really challenging for me to land a job eventually, because when I was studying my master's degree, I really didn't try to look for some jobs to gain my local work experience, but luckily, in the end, I got a job that was a parental leave replacement, and more luckily, after a few months, that person didn't come back, so I got to stay in that position. So this is how I landed in higher ed sector. And then after I tried the job, I found, yes, I really enjoyed it. It confirmed my interest, because I was still working with students like what I did before, before I came to China, but this kind of interaction was more interesting. It was because I got to listen to them, listen to their stories, they share their struggles, their accomplishments, their goals, all these kind of things. And then I felt like more connected with these students. And then I really enjoyed explaining the policy to them, exploring all kinds of possibilities with them, especially after at the end of our conversation, if I found Oh, their faces lighten up because they saw the whole and saw their options, I really felt rewarded. So that's why I felt this job was the one that I really wanted. So that's how I landed a job here in higher ed.

Bri Harvie  
I love that, and I love hearing stories of people coming for education or for whatever, and then just staying. And I'm so excited to have another Canadian on the podcast series. I'm going to try not to talk only about what it's like to be in Canada. But what do you. Think, or I would love to hear your thoughts on what it's like coming and working and advising in Canadian institutions as somebody who wasn't born and raised in Canada?

Jing Yao  
This is a really good question, Bri. Till now, I still sometimes feel a little bit nervous when I meet with students, especially if I see they are born locally, and they are the message students, I still feel like, do I have the do I have the knowledge? Do I have the confidence to explain how the education academic system works here? Because, to be honest, I didn't do my undergrad degree here. I did that back in China, and our education system, at least at my university back then, was quite different from what we have at University of British Columbia here, because in my university, the program was pretty prescribed. We had a certain courses that we have to take. We had a few electives, but not that much. But here, I feel like students really have all their freedom, and I shouldn't say like that much, but they have quite more flexibility to choose the courses that they like. So it's quite different. So I still feel nervous, but how I feel is that I've been working in this sector for many years, and I've been I've been meeting students and discussing about their course planning, course selection. I've been looking at the program pages many times, like numerous times. So I feel like, in this sense, I don't feel like I lack the capability to explain to them. I've also talked to many other students. I can feel like sometimes I can even share other students experience, even though it's not my personal experience, I can just share what other students think what their experience looks like with the current students, yeah, so this is how I adapt to the new environment here and the support students.

Matt Markin  
And you have a lot of experiences, right? You know, from you know, your roles as a previous international student immigration advisor, to being an academic advising to having worked at Douglas College, so being at a two year institution to now being at University of British Columbia, so being at a more research based institution. So I guess the question is, like from from for me to you would be, what are some of those similarities and differences that you found between working at like a two year institution to working at UBC?

Jing Yao  
Yeah, I feel like so similarities are kind of similar. How I say this, it's like we still have workshops. I still need to do course planning. But I say yes, the differences are still there. So, for example, when I was at Douglas, most of the programs, they were pretty prescribed. So the courses are set. Students just need to finish those. For example, 10 courses for this certificate, or 20 courses for this program. At Douglas, we did have associate degrees and a few bachelor's degrees, where students got some opportunities to take some electives, so they did have a little bit flexibility to plan their own electives. However, in comparison at University of British Columbia, because I'm working under Faculty of Arts for arts degree. So students really have a lot of flexibility to choose their courses. So to start off, they have they can make they can choose their different degrees. So under arts degree, we have bachelor of arts degree. We have bachelor of fine arts degree by Bachelor of Social Work. So all kinds of these degrees on their arts, and then most students are under Bachelor of Arts. And then once they are under this degree, they have a lot of options for programs. We have over 70 programs. The first students choose and students, they can combine these programs to make it like major and minor or double major or honor and major or double honors. So they have all these kind of flexibility to customize their own degree, and then based on the options they choose. Now, they can put the courses together and see how they complete their program requirements as well as degree requirements. So when I help them, I feel like I need to spend more time exploring the students interest, and also encourage students to start to explore their interests, because usually when students first start off their university, they don't know what courses, what paths. They might be interested in. So as an advisor, I just try to encourage them to explore some unknown areas that maybe they've never they've never tried before, attempted before. And then once they try out various areas, maybe they can find where the passionate passion lies, lies in and then, yeah, from there they can start to figure out, see what majors, what programs they want to focus more on. So I will say, Yes, this is the major difference between the two year institution and four year institution, and also at the University right now. I definitely take more responsibility as an academic advisor, because we also do graduation adjudication at one graduation comes, so we will check students program requirements, degree requirements, and then make sure they need, they check off all the requirements, and then we really hit the magic button to graduate them. So I feel like this is a lot of accountability to make sure we do the things right. We can't miss make any mistakes. I mean, sometimes mistake do happens, but we try our best. And in addition, at current role, I definitely have to use more counseling skills. It is because we have field year asked to withdraw policy so if the students grade average is not satisfying our criteria, we are asking students to withdraw from our university for a year. This is to acknowledge their challenges, their difficulties, but also to really give them time for them to work on their challenges and see we're improving their academic skills, and try to just, how do I say when they come back, they can start strong and then resume their studies here at the university? Another thing is academic concessions. I don't think many, many universities have this policy. So I'm gonna just explain a little bit. So when students they are having some mental health conditions, or if they encounter some unfortunate experience such as grief, right? So this is under compassionate ground, or maybe they need to attend some conferences or some competition. So this is under conflicting responsibilities. So due to these grounds, the students might not be able to finish their assignment or their quizzes, or may turn final in time. In that case, if it's a falling under the ground meeting our criteria, we work with the instructors and then allow them to to turn in the assignments or attend the final or midterm at a later time, or the student the instructors, they have the flexibility to shift the ways, for example, from a term of quiz to the final so this is how we support students. So why do I explain this is to show that when students they are encountering all these kind of situations, they can be really overwhelmed and very stressed out. And so when they sit in my office, I feel like I really need to lend them empathetic ears to really listen to their stories and their struggles, their concerns, and then from there, after we build out the trust, we can start to explore together about their options. Yeah, so this is why I say I feel like I take more responsibility and also utilize more counseling skills here, and other few more things in terms of the differences is that, as the previous institution, a two year college, it is more like a community college, so we have about 3000 to 4000 international students, because that was the students group that I was working with. I was working at the international office only, but at the University of British Columbia, because I'm working under faculty of arts, arts advising. So we serve all the students, including international and the master students. So the body of international of the students really increases a lot. Right now we have about 14,000 students for us to support. So I would say this is a big difference in terms of the students population, and then most. Students in the college, some of them, they are adult learners. They came here after they already finished their degrees back in their home country, and they came here and want to further their studies and then stay here to immigrate. But at my current institution, most of the students, they are fresh graduate from their high school. So here's another difference, and last thing for my current role that I'm very excited about is that this current role has some about, I can't say maybe 20% basically, we get a chance to do some projects. This is a thing that I didn't get to do much in my previous job. So everybody could take on some projects. For example, for me, I was the lead for EDI Equity, Diversity and Inclusion mentorship research team at that time our office, in order to promote EDI, we wanted to do some research and see how other institutions launched their programs and support their employees. So we did research and then proposed a model, and hopefully later on, we can make it, we can put it into practice. And this year, before I took my mat leave, I was also the CO lead for workday project, because our university, at that time, they changed the whole system for students, so we now are using workday but under this new system, we might have some issues with the new process and how the students read the new academic progress reports. So yeah. So co lead doing that. Um, yeah, these are all the differences between these two institutions.

Bri Harvie  
That's awesome. And I mean, it's fundamentally different work advising students for two years versus advising four. But it's sometimes easy to lose sight of even just like all the procedural differences that come with different kinds of institutions. You spoke a couple of times about using more counseling skills and having to have more of those kind of holistic conversations with students. I think this is something a lot of advisors across North America really have to they have to walk that line between what's counseling and what's advising and what is beyond the scope of my role, and I don't necessarily have the training to provide, versus What help can I provide? Specifically, I'm thinking what you're talking about. Those conversations with students when they've been academically withdrawn and they have to take a year off, that can be a really hard conversation to have to have with a student, especially somewhere like UBC, that has that higher, higher volume of international students for the implications of withdrawal or higher? I'd love to hear your approach on how you handle those conversations with students. What kind of tools do you have in your tool belt for helping de escalate those students and understand, like you said, it's acknowledging the challenges help them understand the silver lining, which is hard, but the silver lining of the withdrawal and taking some time off to focus on whatever else might be going on in their life right then?

Jing Yao  
Yeah, that's definitely tough conversation that I have to admit. And then it usually happens in May, when students, they got their grades, and then they got the notification from our office. So when they come to my office, what I do first, as I mentioned before, and I try to be empathetic with their situation, acknowledge the their feelings, as you said, Bri, it's not easy for them to get this notice that they have to withdraw from this university because many students they dream to come to the University of British Columbia to finish their studies. This is about their identity. So when they are told that they are going to lose it for a year, it just really hard for them to accept I can see that they might feel a lot of pressure. They might feel humiliated because they don't want to share this with their parents, their family and also their friends. So I really try to be empathetic first, and acknowledge their concerns, and also I try to tell them that this is not to punish them. We acknowledge their challenges. That's why we think it is time. We really want to give them some time for them to take a break from our university and work on the challenges that they are facing. I also usually share some stories of other students. I won't go into details, but I will tell them that based on our experience, if the students, they really try to appeal to come back while their situation is still ongoing, it's actually not doing them any benefits. Their grades might continue to go down, and in the end, if they get into the second field here, they are not guaranteed to come back, but if this is their first field year, they might be able to come back more easily. So based on this experience sharing, sometimes students may feel like okay, it's more acceptable for them. And also, another thing is that I want to also build out their confidence, because usually our requirement for students to come back, for example, if they have less than 54 credits when they come back, they need to actually have taken some courses with another institution, yes, and then Get the certain grades. So I think I would encourage students to tell them, this is actually really a great opportunity for you to rebuild up your academic skills. If you think that you're able to handle the academic stress and then manage all the courses here, it's a great opportunity for you to work and to prove to us those smaller colleges, institutions, their standards are relatively lower than the than UBC, so it might be easier for them to rebuild up their confidence. So this is also another way Yes. So I feel like this is what I usually share with students. Sorry, my my mind just went blank. What else let me think? Yeah. So in the end, I would always share that I know this is not easy, but I know there they have this resilience, because I've seen other students, they have also done this. We are always here. If they need any support, they can always come to us and we can discuss their course plan and then see how the courses they take as another institution can fit into the program here at UBC and help them to smoothly transition back here. And I always give them some hope, give them some options, and tell them that I really look forward to seeing them back here. 

Matt Markin  
I like the terms I use in terms of resilience and also confidence. Because, yeah, I think just like finding out that, you know, I'm on this, like, academic type of notice or probation. Can, you know, really have this negative connotation to it, but the fact that you're sharing with them and saying, here are the steps to get back on track that does can, you know, really help them build back up their confidence, and hopefully they follow through with that. Now, it was mentioned from your bio that you are currently on maternity leave and but you're also kind of staying active within the advising community. So kind of two questions. One, how is mom life going? And also, what makes you during this time wanting to still be, you know, really active within the advising community, kind of staying up to date on everything?

Jing Yao  
Yeah, so I joined Emerging Leader program before I found out that I was pregnant. So I feel like, first, this is a two year program, even though my plan changed, I feel like it's still worth it to continue to be in this program and get as much experience as I can. And then why do I choose to stay connected with other advising communities? And I feel like, although it is really precious to stay with my newborn? No, it's he's really cute. I feel sometimes really mentally drained, because every day I have to do all these mundane tasks like changing diapers and then feeding him, all these things. I'm not trying to diminish these tasks, but it does take a lot of tolls on my mental health and also my personal identity, because I feel like I really want to, I really enjoy being academic advisor. So how I can continue to work in this profession on mat leave? Is that okay? Maybe I can try. Try to still join these, stay connected with these advising communities, and then participating in some meetings and also some events, because I feel like they're rejuvenated after talking to other professions and learn about, you know, the current updates and their practices. I feel like, Oh, I'm still kind of working, and it's a way also for me to continue to build up my confidence, because I don't want to when I go back to work, I feel like, oh, I forget the many of these practice. I don't think I will forget them, but I think it will just help me transition back to work more more easily, and I feel like I need to continue to build out my skills for public speaking. So by participating in these events, I feel this is still great chance for me to continue to build up this skill.

Bri Harvie  
That's awesome, and I applaud you for being willing and able and doing both, because it's like you said, it's not to diminish one or the other. They're just very different parts of your brain. As I'm also a parent, I did something very similar that I joined nicata and then was expecting, and was like, Alright, here we are. And I, I found, personally, Nakata was a great way to kind of keep my feet wet in the advising world and still not feel super disconnected from the profession. This is, I mean, you're already doing great things. You're an ELP, you're on maternity leave, you're the BC region liaison i or BC provincial liaison on the region steering committee. I would love it to hear a little bit about what you're finding you're taking away from these experiences that you are excited to take back to your role when you do go back to work?

Jing Yao  
Yeah, great question. So in my mat leave just recently, I think Matt, you mentioned earlier, I joined two panels, actually, one is the panel, the other one is more like a coffee chat. So the topics were focusing on how we support first generation adult learners. The other one was about the social justice across the globe. So through the these two events, I feel like because I was sitting in the panel and the other one, I was the main person joining in this discussion, so I had to really prepare by reading some articles and learn about the practices. So I feel really like the these two events gave me opportunities to continue to do my research and build up my toolkit for me to learn more about these student groups. And then I'm thinking, because, for example, at my university, we don't have this special, specific office to support first generation students or adult learners, but I think this topic really sparks my interest. I am planning to read more on this and learn more about the practices among other institutions, because I know some institutions, they do have the offices specifically supporting this group of students. So maybe in the future, when I go back, hopefully, after doing some research, I am able to propose some model for our institution, for our faculty to better support this group of students. So this is a thing that I can bring back to the office. And second one is, as I mentioned, I still continue to build up my public speaking skill. So back to work. I know we always have some workshops. So this is something that I can always use in the future as well. Another thing that I want to mention is that when working with when participating in these events, is also a great opportunity for me to network with colleagues from other institutions. So I think this will be also a great asset for the future. In the future when we need to partner with other institutions to host some events, or, for example, as I said, when I want to propose a new model and I want to learn more about how their institution works, I can always reach out to these people. And I'm sure in the future, I can get more information from them when needed. 

Matt Markin  
Very true. And actually, this next question I have is actually for both Jing and breeds, for both of you being parents, I'm actually interested, has being a parent taught you anything about like balance perspective, or even academic advising?

Jing Yao  
So I will go first, okay, um, one thing that I learned is, I know it's really personal, but I still want to share. It's about breastfeeding. So in my mind, I always feel like no pain, no gains. I always believe that if I try hard, I will get the thing that I want. I will get reward. But I'm breastfeeding this issue, I noticed. I realized this is not always things are not always like this. So even though I work really hard and wake up a few times at night, pump every three hours or breastfeed my baby every three hours, my milk supply just doesn't increase. Initially, I was very devastated. I felt like very frustrated. I felt like I tried so hard working on this, but I just didn't my milk supply just didn't increase. So it was really tough for me for maybe first, first months or two, and then later on, I felt like this did take a lot of mental health. Did it take a lot of tolls on my mental health. So gradually I kind of reconcile with myself. I felt like this is something that I have to acknowledge. This is the reality. I can't change it. But the life continues. My baby needs to grow, so it's okay for me to give him top up, to give him formula, and then he is a healthy baby, as long as he grows. Well, that's the main thing. And then I'm still contributing just not enough. So pretty much like half, half, but I'm still helping him to build up his immune system, and then creating this bond with my baby. So this is all what it matters, and then slowly, slowly, I also felt like my mental health improved. I really don't have to force myself to reach some goal that is really not attainable. So why do I want to share this? I feel like it's also similar to students experience at work, although I don't think I can share this with every students, because many students, they are not moms, they don't have this experience. But what I want to share, what I want to say is that I know sometimes students, they just feel a lot of pressure. They feel like they have to choose some majors, they feel like very promising that leads to great career prospect. But meanwhile, they don't realize maybe they are those majors, those programs just are not suitable for them. They are struggling. These kind of struggles cause them not to be able to do well mentally. So in this sense, I feel like this is also a chance for them to realize sometimes we can always change. We can change a path and try to reconcile with themselves, and then you can still reach your goal and then make progress towards finishing your degree. It doesn't mean like you give up your your your passion. You give up your interest. For example, many students in our in our faculty, they really enjoy econ. They like econ, but they might not be able to do well. But how can you continue to pursue your interest while making progress towards completing your degree. Okay, maybe you can find your interest in other areas and choose another program. But doesn't mean you can't do econ. You can still do it. Maybe continue to take courses, some courses, just doing econ as a minor. So this way the students can have their parallel plan. They can continue to pursue some courses, and these courses are not those courses heavily focusing on math or stats, but they still get some sense for econ. Meanwhile, they complete their degree in another area, and their mental health also improves. So yeah, this is what I realized, that sometimes we don't have to force ourselves.

Bri Harvie  
Thank you for sharing that. I think it's 100% true. I had a very similar experience with my daughter, and it really forces you to to re define success and at the end of the day and parenting success is healthy in every sense of the word, emotionally, psychologically, physically healthy child, and how that happens can be different. I like I said, I had a very similar experience, and I think what being a parent over the last seven and a half years my daughter's seven and a half has forced me to redefine. What I think of as my best, and I try to take that approach with less of my more so with my my employees, because I don't actually work with students, right? I work with managers who lead students, and I talk to them a fair bit about this. In your best is going to look different every day, and sometimes your best is I need to focus on my daughter and my relationship with my daughter, or my relationship with my husband or my dog or whatever. And sometimes my best is I actually have to be willing to set those aside for a minute and focus on this work thing. And that is me doing my best for my family that day, for my job that day, and it's it's given me the ability to be way more mentally malleable in redefining what my success as an individual looks like, because my best might not be the same today as it is tomorrow as it was yesterday, and being able to give yourself a little bit more Grace and understand that you can't always be all things to all people, I think has been really valuable. I mean, this is a whole different podcast we could do on, like, working parents and feminism and all of that, and we're not going to get into that, but like, the emotional labor of having to maintain a family and maintain a role, especially in higher education, where our roles are also quite emotionally taxing. I think it's very easy to become overwhelmed and burnt out. So you have to learn how to set those boundaries and do that redefining of what success looks like. I think that's been the most personally valuable lesson for me as a parent that I also now take into my role as a leader and at my institution. I think technically, it's my turn to ask a question, but I just answered one, so Matt, now you have to ask another one.

Matt Markin  
All right, fine, I'll ask another one, but no, thank you both for answering that. It's very enlightening. And yeah, I think it's great hearing like the you know your best is going to be different every day, because situations change. I mean, you're responsible for human beings so, but yeah, thank you both again for that. So Jing back to you. We're it's an ELP podcast. So you mentioned a little bit about being part of Emerging Leaders Program. What have been your goals in year one and and what are your goals looking into year two of the program?

Jing Yao  
Yeah. So for my goal, the first thing is that I really want to get more involved into Nakata community. So I guess so for the year one i It's the it's the time for me to get more familiar with the structure and then see how each advising community works. And then after getting more information, learning more about the advising community, I guess I will be able to find where my interest lies. And then for year two, I think I want to focus more on applying to be a leader in those advising communities. So for example, right now, I am involved in first generation advising community, and also social justice advising community, as well as Canadian advisor, Canadian advising community. So among these three communities, I've been attending their events, joining in their steering committee, committee meetings. So yeah, at the end of the year, one, hopefully I can find which one is more interesting to me and sparks more interest. And then hopefully from year two, I want to get more involved as a leader. So this is the first goal, and then second one is second one is third one. As I would say, they're quite similar. Go hand in hand. I would like to public, public. I would like to publish the article, and also perhaps co present with another colleague in the conferences in the future, so for the first year, because right now I'm on my Matt leave, I feel like it's a great time for me to have some my own quiet time and really focusing on doing some research, reading articles, attending those webinars, learning more about the practices. Yeah, so this way I again, it can help me to learn more and lay a good, solid foundation and also finds which parts might be more interesting to me. And then from year two, I would like to start working on my writing and preparing for the presentation and also networking with the colleagues, so that maybe we can I can find someone. Like a partner to co present together in the future.

Bri Harvie  
That's awesome. And I love the idea of publishing and presenting kind of going hand in hand. Joan Cruz, who I don't, I can't remember what, what her official title is with ELP, but she's in charge of ELP. She always says, like, if you have a presentation, you have a paper. Or was that Wendy? Now I'm maybe second guessing myself.

Matt Markin  
It was Wendy, but she presented, but Joan had her present to the emerging leaders. 

Bri Harvie  
I heard it So, Dr. Wendy Gates Troxel then says that if you have a presentation, you have a paper, and it's, it's so great again. Now I'm putting my Canadian hat back on. It's so great to have more Canadian voices in presentations and publications within higher education and academic advising, and especially in the Cata because there is, there's just, there's fewer of us, so we have significantly less to show for it. And so I love celebrating. And I say, do it all. I think it's great. Um, thinking about just kind of wrapping things up here in our last couple of minutes together. Um, you're like, you're halfway through the ELP program now you're spending some time at home with your baby. What do you think the next year looks like for you? What are you excited for? What's next in line?

Jing Yao  
I guess it builds up on what I am doing right now for next year. As I said earlier, I I am involved in first generation advising community as well as social justice, so hopefully I will just read more articles. And in addition to these two, I'm also in interest in how to support undecided and exploratory students. Yeah, so for these three topics, I'm hoping to just read more articles on the cut up page, or some paper research papers, and then jot down some ideas and some practices, and then second thing that I want to do is to maybe peek into other institutions websites, if they have a kind of like specific group supporting these groups of students, I really hope to learn how they do it, and maybe try to reach out to those colleagues and learn more about their practices and then put things together. So hopefully I can make a proposal, or at least like a draft, for the future. So when I go back to work, because I'm going back to work in March or April next year, so actually coming up soon, yeah, so when I go back, hopefully I have some proposal for my office, and then in the future, I am looking forward to putting these into practice, and hopefully we can also have some like specific, special group of advisors supporting first generation students, or exploratory and undecided students. Another thing that I forgot to mention is that I know NACADA also has the tutorial to that's focusing on how to support exploratory and undecided students. So I'm looking forward to taking sunny up for that tutorial when I get back to work, just to learn more. And year two, what else I am looking forward to? I think it's the annual conference. I really enjoyed the conference in Pittsburgh, so I know 2026 is just kind of around the corner. So hopefully I get to go to the conference in 2026 and then connect with other ELP leaders and the mentors, and get to know more people and learn more things that I'm interested in, and then bring back to my office.

Matt Markin  
Yeah. Well, if there's anything we know already about you, you have ideas, and you put them into practice already. I know, like you've been talking about, you know, I want to do more reading and prepping for the next year, but also kind of think about everything you've already done, being part of the coffee chat, being part of the panel, like you did two things during the global advising week, you know, and, and just know, too You have brie and I if you want to brainstorm or come across with proposals. I mean, just like you're saying, the 2026 conference will be right around the corner, because proposals are going to start being accepted probably this December. So already, just, you know. Not too long from now and then, also, I know you're talking about, you know, thinking about the kind of leadership type positions you might want to go for for year two. But in a way, you're in a leadership position already being the British Columbia liaison for Nakata, region eight, so you're already there. So continue doing the great work, and thank you so much for joining Bri and I today.

Jing Yao  
Yeah, thank you so much, Matt and Bri. I really cherish this opportunity. I think this is a great for me to reflect on my journey and also really think about what I have done, what I'm doing, and what I want to accomplish in the future. So yeah, great opportunity for me to think about something else my Matt leave. Yeah, and I really appreciate this program. Because of this program, I got to know both of you, as well as other excellent ELP leaders and mentors. It's really great.

Bri Harvie  
We're the most fun though, right? 

Jing Yao  
Yes, you are. Yeah. Thank you.