Dashelle Disna: 0:00

Social workers are here to provide help. We want to know what has happened in your life that makes you the way that you are, and what resources can we give you to alleviate those type of things we look at. We try to look at the strengths of a person instead of their weaknesses.'cause we all come with trauma. We all, we all come with certain things. We want to know why is this person the way that they are. So with those kind of assessments, you can figure out why this person is the way, the way that they are based on their family, where they grew up. Culture, heritage, it's always good learning about that, about that with people Don't just rush into college just because everybody's doing it. If somebody, that's, if some people, if you need to take a year off to work before you pay for school, do that because some people need a break. You've been in school ever since you were four and now you are 18 and now you wanna go to more school. Like there's no rush.

Miguel Sanchez : 0:57

Welcome everyone to another episode of the First Gen 101 podcast. Today I have Dachelle Disna. Dachelle, thank you for joining me today.

Dashelle Disna: 1:07

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Miguel Sanchez : 1:10

Dachelle, we've known each other now for just about a year or more. We attend the same church, CrossLife Church in Thiells, New York, and you've been a blessing. You've been helping out with the worship team, with the social media team as well. So you've been really involved and we are, we're happy to have you at CrossLife. And Recently we've talked about the podcast and, the sort of what we're looking for and the intent with this. And we were just talking about this a moment ago of how this has been really helpful to, not only students, but to guidance counselors, helping them, have a resource for their students. And we're going to start off with, can you share about your background and where did you live during your high school years?

Dashelle Disna: 2:04

So I am first generation American. My parents came from Haiti after the Duvalier regime. That was like the dictatorship in Haiti. So they came like late eighties, early nineties. My parents, my whole family, I've been living here forever. I lived in Spring Valley grew up in Spring Valley, went to Spring Valley high school, graduate in 2013. I've just been around Rocking County all my life.

Miguel Sanchez : 2:29

So you attended Spring Valley High School. Yeah. And when, around the time you were in, in high school and your parents being from, and your family being from Haiti, At what point did you start thinking about college? Because obviously here in the United States, it's also a cultural thing where, students start thinking about college during their sophomore, junior year, depending of where they are in their lives. At what point did you start thinking, okay, college is potentially the next step in my life.

Dashelle Disna: 3:01

It's been ingrained in us like a whole life. Cause our parents, they went to They didn't finish college when they were in their country, so everybody in the family had to go to some type of continuing education so it's always been in our minds, go to college, you make more money, you don't want to have the bare minimum, low paying jobs, they want your, everybody wants their kids to live well, so it's always college in our minds.

Miguel Sanchez : 3:25

So one of the things that I hear regularly from first generation graduates, like yourself, is my family. They pushed me in some ways to become a doctor, to become a lawyer. Did you have a particular profession in mind? How did you see yourself after college?

Dashelle Disna: 3:49

I don't think my family ever my, at least my parents have never pushed me to be a specific thing, but that's mostly what. they were brought up to think doctors, lawyers, nurses. Me, even though I wasn't even good in science or math or any of that stuff, I was like, let me just pick nursing. No one was forcing me. I be, I chose nursing the beginning of freshman year and I'm like, this is not for me. And I became a social worker, which is way more of my thing.

Miguel Sanchez : 4:14

At what point did you change your interest? Was this already in? Your college career or did that start before?

Dashelle Disna: 4:24

It was already in my college career. I tried to do the nursing stuff freshman year, couldn't really grasp it. So I just changed my major because apparently social work is a medical field, so all my credits were transferred to for my social work credits as well.

Miguel Sanchez : 4:42

And where did you attend college?

Dashelle Disna: 4:45

Dominican. When I went, it was Dominican College, Dominican University of New York in Bloorveld.

Miguel Sanchez : 4:51

Interestingly you are the second graduate from Dominican University I'm happy that they've produced great students, and so I'm glad that they're playing a big part of the podcast. And so you start in school did you live in college? Did you commute? How did that look like for you?

Dashelle Disna: 5:10

I commuted because I already had a car, I was still working part time, so I just stayed local to work and to provide for myself,

Miguel Sanchez : 5:20

basically. And So you're commuting, you say you provide for yourself. Did you work since you started college or did you work later? How did that look like for you?

Dashelle Disna: 5:30

I worked ever since high school. I was working at McDonald's in high school. McDonald's had an education program where they would, they were giving out 800 every year to cover, every semester to cover books and everything else for the semester. As long as you keep your average, a B minus or above. So if you don't keep a B minus or above, you'd have to give back the 800.

Miguel Sanchez : 5:51

That's interesting. And did you have that support throughout college? Actually, let me, before, before we go into that, let me ask you this. Did you learn of that benefit before you started working in McDonald's or you find this benefit? No, I

Dashelle Disna: 6:09

learned about it probably my sophomore year that they had that program.

Miguel Sanchez : 6:16

And for how long did you have it?

Dashelle Disna: 6:19

I used it all the way up until my senior year.

Miguel Sanchez : 6:22

How were your parents involved in the color selection process? It sounds like from other people I've talked to, parents generally just don't know, right? How were your parents involved in this process?

Dashelle Disna: 6:34

My parents were involved in this process. We had instant decision day in high school. We went through the high schools, we brought our resume, and then you got approved or rejected during the high school. So I know I didn't want to go to RCC. I don't want to stay local. So once they said, oh, you got accepted to Dominican, I just followed through with that. Everything just aligned. And that time, and it was a Catholic college. I was Catholic around that time. So I was very involved in all the things and everything religious mass reading for mass did everything. I really love the school.

Miguel Sanchez : 7:10

It saddened me for a moment when you said that you didn't want to go to RCC because I went to RCC but I understand that it was a different time. Now, it sounds like the type of school also has something to do with having because I know from, I know you now, again, for a little over a year. And I know that faith is really important for you. So it sounds like that was a big part of your college decision. Wasn't it?

Dashelle Disna: 7:35

was a big part. It was a big part. And the activities that the schools did, like we went on alternative spring break where we did like Habitat for Humanity, the school pretty much paid for everything. You go on a flight to California, build some homes or one spring break. I went to North Carolina, took that drive, there was a lot of things going on. We had big brothers, big sisters foundation. They had meals on wheels every Friday. We did so much in that school. So I wanted to just not only go to school, but be active.

Miguel Sanchez : 8:07

And these activities habitat for humanity and the others you mentioned was this something that. That was encouraged or is this something that you learned during school and you pursued as part of your education?

Dashelle Disna: 8:24

No, they were just like, Hey guys, we need people to, there was a hurt. One year was a hurricane that hit. New Jersey or whatever natural disaster that there is or human need They're like we're going this place for spring break Who wants to give their spring break up so we can go to this place that place? And I just said i'm like i'm going to be sitting at home working anyway So I might as well just use my time to make a difference with a family and make friends with other people So I want a spring break. I went on the alternative spring break for three years for my college experience

Miguel Sanchez : 8:57

And what are some of the lessons or things you learn from those experiences?

Dashelle Disna: 9:04

It was so much fun because I was very shy, believe it or not. So college really opened me up to public speaking, learning other people's You know, how disaster affect people's lives. We learned a lot of things. We learned how to share spaces. Because we didn't, we were sleeping in churches, like a church would give us a place to sleep. We'll be sleeping on cots, bunk beds, like 10 girls in a room, one bathroom. I remember one place didn't even have a bathroom. We had to go to the YMCA to take a shower. So we cooked every day. A group had to cook for each other. We had a five minute, five dollar. Meal deal where our group had to go to the market and buy food for five dollars. We made it work We just buy spaghetti, stuff you can get for five dollars, you know It made us really, you know Look at like certain families don't have the opportunity to just be spending all this money on food every day You know it humbled us a lot In those trips

Miguel Sanchez : 10:04

and during this trips and just to recap, and I you gave me some places, but you, so you went to California at one point but what was the other, what were the other two places you mentioned?

Dashelle Disna: 10:14

I went to as very high to New Jersey and then I went to North Carolina.

Miguel Sanchez : 10:20

And especially at North Carolina what were some of the things that you learn from these communities that you just were shocked or were eyeopening for you?

Dashelle Disna: 10:32

Because every community, we stayed at a church, so it was good to see different environments, like, how different people do their church. It was really nice to see the community North Carolina, I guess because it's just a southern thing. Even though we're supposed to be cooking every day, they cook for us every day. We were having mac and cheese with graham cra like graham crackers on top We were eating good food every day So you see how different people, the hospitality that certain groups have. It was, and every trip was for a different purpose. I think New Jersey was for an old elderly couple that lost their house due to Hurricane Sandy, I think. North Carolina was just we were just removing a roof from someone's house, and that was an all girls trip, so no boys on that trip, all girls. And then California, Weed, California, is where they had a devastating fire. And so we were helping build a ramp for this elderly couple, things like that. So every trip meant something different especially with the church environment. Every church was different every community was different, so it was really

Miguel Sanchez : 11:39

One of the things that we highlight in this podcast is and our listeners have noticed that many of our topics surround around this idea that in college. You learn certain things, a subject, a career, and you also get to meet people. You get to build a network. And so did your experience in Habitat for Humanity, did that shape? Your career, your interests, because I know we're gonna we're gonna talk about the social work piece But did that have something to do with your interest? Did that not have anything at all? How does that play into your in your?

Dashelle Disna: 12:17

No, I don't think it really shaped my interest as much because social work was always something that I like to do Because I would like to help people But with Habitat for Humanity, I was thinking about doing that. Like I wanted to do that job full time. Okay. I wanted to be part of AmeriCorps. I wanted to go everywhere around the United States and build houses and all that stuff, put insulation on the people's homes. That's what I wanted to do. I should just go around the United States or Puerto Rico, wherever there's a natural disaster and do that work. I really wanted to do that, serve that way in that capacity.

Miguel Sanchez : 12:50

And so tell us about being a social worker. And so what was your major? Were you, did you major in social work? How does that look like for you?

Dashelle Disna: 13:01

Yes, I majored in social work with a minor in gerontology. Gerontology is geriatric, so I work with the senior population. That was my interest. Even though now at my workplace now I work with different ages. From my age to 85. But that's what I majored in. I took, I had a lot of internships at Rockin Psych, Office for the Aging. So I really enjoyed it. Like it's one thing to learn in college, but to have all those experiences and knowledge was something that I enjoyed way more than the learning and the writing papers.

Miguel Sanchez : 13:33

What is, and I'm asking because in my own work in previous work, social workers were everywhere we always had to call a social worker for help. So tell us what is a social worker?

Dashelle Disna: 13:52

Social workers are here to provide help. We try to figure out, we also, we always do a bio psycho social. We want to know what has happened in your life that makes you the way that you are. And what resources can we give you to alleviate those type of things? We look at, we try to look at the strengths of a person instead of their weaknesses. Because we all come with trauma, we all come with certain things. We want to know why is this person the way that they are? Because it has to be something from when they're, when they were a child. So with those kind of assessments, you can figure out why this person is the way that they are, based on their family, where they grew up, culture, heritage. It's always good learning about that about that with people.

Miguel Sanchez : 14:35

we talked about some of the experiences you had on these alternative spring breaks and a little bit about the topics you learned. What was the hardest part of college? Generally speaking what are some of the things that, that you're like, I don't miss this. This was probably one of the worst experiences I've had.

Dashelle Disna: 14:56

The paperwork, because social workers, we have to write 20 pages minimum, every paper, that's probably the worst thing ever to write 20 pages, double, double spaced, indented, bibliography in alphabetical order. Things that take time to do and I told you I was working. I was still working part time. I would go to school all day. I would have off Fridays, go to school all day, go to work from 3 to 11, wake up early to go to class the next day. So I'm sitting up finishing papers, or take a day off to spend all my nights in the library, because I think around that time, like when it's finals week, the libraries are open till 3am. And not only do we have to do the papers, we have to present the papers on a PowerPoint. I like the presenting, because I can talk, I like to present what I do, 15 minutes, I'm out of there. But it's the writing and doing the assignments. While I was working and being in clubs, trying to do a lot of things at once.

Miguel Sanchez : 15:54

And I was just going to mention and this was, Before ChatGPT. And I'm impressed to hear that you were even involved with different activities because time can be so limiting. And so you finished school and you did great. How was it searching for a job? Because now you're finished college, now it's time to work. And by work, it's in a full time job in the things that you studied for. What was the job search for you like?

Dashelle Disna: 16:21

I, after I finished Dominican in 2017, I went for grad school for a year, an accelerated course. So I finished August 2018. I was looking for jobs, and I found a job, not as a social worker, but as something else. because I have the bachelors in social work, and because I have, I did all those activities, and because I speak another language, I was, and I live in Rocking County, it was, I had better leverage to do all this type of stuff, to get my foot in the door, even though it may not be the best paying thing, but people are looking at me just because I did all these things,

Miguel Sanchez : 16:59

When you say all these things, you're referring to the,

Dashelle Disna: 17:02

Like the club, like doing the clubs, the Habitat for Humanity, all those things. They only, they don't, they didn't only just see my grades, but like this girl is a well rounded student, a well rounded person.

Miguel Sanchez : 17:14

I'm glad you're bringing this up because one of the things that we encourage listeners, whether you're a high school student or currently in college, is that any activities you're involved in speak about you and what you bring to the table beyond your grades, as you mentioned being involved in so many different things and doing them well to helps you be a well rounded student. And employers will look at that as well. That does not go unnoticed. I want to ask you this because I. I also worked in, I didn't work in a McDonald's, but I worked in a catering company in a cafe for many years during college and right after school. And there's so much that I learned there What are some of the lessons you learned in McDonald's that you still applying How did that look like for you?

Dashelle Disna: 18:02

Yes. Before I answer that too, I worked at McDonald's. Yes. That was like my main job. But I also, during college seasonal jobs. I worked at Kohl's. Or I did Black Friday up in up in Monroe at that Woodbury Commons. So all these things made me realize that people are just unbelievable. If you don't know how to work with people, because people are just going to people. So it really taught me a lot of things. You have to have thick skin, especially in my profession. You have to have thick skin, you just let things go over your head. It's not that serious. People are angry. Some people are angry at not even at you. It's that they're at the world. It just teaches people, it taught me teamwork and dealing with people and all that stuff. Worth ethic, budgeting, work taught me all of that. Working at a young age, I started working at 17, so almost half my life being in a workplace.

Miguel Sanchez : 19:03

And we applaud that here and I'm really encouraged to hear that because, many times whether it's high school students or college students don't work for whatever reason, it doesn't make you a bad person either, but having that, those extra experiences help you appreciate what you have and help you, as you said, Build character to, that will be applicable in other jobs and especially in the work you do, it comes in handy. So bringing it back to your current work in social work what are some of the things that you love about your job? I know you talked about a lot of the writing that goes into it. What do you love about your job? What are some of the things that you don't love too much?

Dashelle Disna: 19:45

I love about my job is that every day is something different, every day is something different with my clients we have a good work, I have a great supervisor, I have a great director, we have a great staff, we celebrate each other's birthdays, we have fun, we're just fun people, we help each other out when one person's out sick, I think Challenging is sometimes because I have certain clients, we need to be, we need to have billable notes. So you have a client that doesn't want to do anything. So then you ask them what are you doing in this program? Because you don't want to do anything, or you can't get in touch with them. For the course of a month, you call people. They don't answer overwhelming clients that wants you to do 20, 000 things. I think you're like a fairy, but that's not how things work. People don't want to do they want you to do everything for them, but they don't want to do anything themselves. So those type of things and I guess caseload too because as a social worker, there's a caseload. With my agency we had two people leave the company So I had 12 people automatically come into my caseload this month. Everybody got divided to more people So you spent all this time trying to learn your people and now you have to learn other people's stuff people and undo all the work that they other people have done because they didn't do it so That's probably the most frustrating thing at work Yeah, dealing with clients that are overwhelming and undoing other people's bad work.

Miguel Sanchez : 21:10

Certainly with having these challenges of sometimes staffing can be an issue and I hope this discussion today encourages other people who want to become social workers to, to know that it's, you're doing great work. It is hard meaningful work and you're helping people and just to, as we come to the end of our discussion today, one of the things that I ask regularly is. What are some tips, or, actually, lemme put it to you this way. If you could, knowing what you know now and the experiences you have now, what would you say to the Shell who's just graduating high school and starting college? What are some things that you would advise yourself if you could,

Dashelle Disna: 21:58

knowing what you're signing up for, make sure that you understand what financial aid is. Don't just rush into college just because everybody's doing it. If somebody that's, if some people, if you need to take a year off to work. Before you pay for school do that because some people need a break You've been at school ever since you were four and now you're 18 and now you want to go to more school Like there's no rush to do things all in About 20 years because that was the thing for me. I'm like, I want to finish school when i'm 22 I just want to finish school. I just want to finish because I know I am i'm gonna be lazy And also, you know find working opportunities and I worked one day for five hours I had work studying in the college. So I was working in the college for five hours out of my day, too. So I did everything. So get involved, go to the library because they charge you that for your tuition, go to the library make friends, network, because a lot of places now what you know is who you know, so network. Because I'm pretty cool with my high school professors, college professors, still, we still talk. I make college friends. I still talk to my college friends who have graduated in the same cohort. Make friends. Don't just be book smart and, go to school and just book, read books all the time and pass. Get involved, be book smart, be in community, enjoy the college life,

Miguel Sanchez : 23:20

there's a few things that I want to highlight because you're checking off many of the things we mentioned in previous episodes and I'm glad that it, that you are saying this because it just reinforces this idea that one and I've heard this this quote from Pastor Sal from Gracepoint Church, he would say young people at a very young age have to make these decisions that are going to have a long lasting impact and one of them is college. As you said, if it's okay to maybe take a break, save some money, understand how college is an investment, because that's what it is. And that may. Required understanding financial aid process and if you're in high school, make sure you talk to your guidance counselor about that. And then the other thing you mentioned that it's key. Network. It's huge. As you said, the shell, it's not so much. It has a lot to do with what you know, but it's equally important to have a strong network and knowing people is going to help you to those opportunities. So I'm glad you brought this up and I'm sure you, you've taken advantage of those, of that advice yourself. And so what are some other things that you would like to share? With the audience, some things that maybe we haven't covered that you believe will really make an impact as people make choices of a college or even just a career.

Dashelle Disna: 24:39

Create a LinkedIn profile, professional headshot, nice and clean. Add all, everybody that you know, add things that you're interested in, talk to people, message people on LinkedIn social media, because social media wasn't really a big thing when I was in high school and college, but now, always be mindful of what you post on social media, don't talk about jobs that you hate, don't talk about hateful stuff, don't post Weird pictures have some clean social media things as well. And don't knock the vocational schools either, If you just want to go to a vocational school, there's BOCES. There's so many things that we have out here that just focus strictly on that too, it may not be college don't go to college because your parents told you to, if you don't have the money, look at stuff that you want to do, get your side hustles going.

Miguel Sanchez : 25:35

Yeah. And that's important. One of the things that I say to myself that we're sidetracking a little bit, but I want to make a point One of the, one of the things that, that I, as I think about my son, who still has many years before he even starts thinking about college, but one of the things that And I think about regularly is, he has to work during school because I'm not paying for all this stuff. And one of the things Regularly is well, what can he do? What should he learn now to have a way to support himself? and having that, mentality of hard work of like you just being aware, little things here and there add up. So I'm glad you're bringing this up that, figure out ways that you can. Get money to work to support yourself so you don't have all this debt at the end of the, of this process Another thing that you mentioned that I think is important is community. It's so important to build community. And as I said in the beginning, I met you in church and we still attend the same church and building community is really important because, There's certain things that are going to be challenging and you want to make sure that you can plug in with people to talk about your situations, your issues so that you don't go about this alone. I had great fun with this conversation. That being said, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate your experiences. I'm going to have you back in the future to talk more about your experiences in Habitat for Humanity, because I think it's really important for for people to hear how amazing that work can be. So Dachelle, thank you very much.

Dashelle Disna: 27:10

Thank you.