Tell Your Story – Connecting Students in Crisis

Jacqui Tejada is an alumna of the Graduate School of Social Work. She obtained her Master’s degree in social work in 2016. She is now a Student Affairs Case Manager at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, California.

Jacqui Tejada Headshot

Tell us a little bit about what you do in your job/community engagement role.

I connect students who are in a crisis to on and off campus resources.

What do you love most about your selected professional path?

I love the ability to have an impact on students’ lives. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to get a higher education degree if they want to; my job allows me to help remove some of the barriers that prevent students from being able to achieve that goal

What are some surprises or challenges people might not know about this line of work or community engagement?

Student Affairs Case Management is a brand new profession – it only came into existence in 2007 after the Virginia Tech tragedy.

If you haven’t always worked in this career/role/industry, tell us a little about your career path and how you wound up in this role.

After completing my Masters, I held two jobs simultaneously; one job was as a research assistant and the other was in crisis counseling. My original plan was to apply to PhD programs in Social Work after 2 years of post-Masters experience; however, after working in research I realized it wasn’t for me. Those jobs helped me see that I loved working for a university, and that helped me focus on networking within universities as I sought out positions where I could apply my social work degree in a higher education setting.

 

By Grace Braddish
Grace Braddish