When Ali Barrier, a first-year graduate student in the College Counseling and Student Development Program, arrived at NC State as an undergraduate student, she already knew she wanted a career helping students find their way in and outside the classroom.
At first, she thought her future lay in high school counseling. However, she quickly developed a love for counseling in higher education.
“Once I discovered all that goes into college, I really realized my passion for this kind of time in people’s lives, especially first-year college students, that big transition period, I realized that’s really where I wanted to be,” Barrier said.
Barrier, who studied psychology as an undergraduate student, has spent the past three years working in various roles for University Housing, allowing her to delve further into helping students find their way on campus and preparing her for a future student affairs career.
A Housing Journey
In her first year of undergraduate studies, Barrier served as the community assistant coordinator and student lead for the team of community assistants at the Central Campus Service Desk.
The following summer, she worked as a lead conference ambassador for University Housing’s Conference and Guest Services team. There, her responsibilities included overseeing student employees, ensuring smooth operations for camps and conferences using University Housing’s facilities over the summer and coordinating key distribution.
“That was a very hospitality-heavy role,” Barrier said. “I would hold meetings with clients two weeks before they came to campus. I would sit in on meetings so that they would know my face, they would know me and that I knew what was happening so that they could ask me questions if needed.”
Olivia Sachtleben, Housing’s assistant director of Conference and Guest Services, said that Barrier stood out early on in the interview process for the role.
“It was clear even in her interviews that she had a high level of organization,” Sachtleben said. “She knew how to talk to people. She had also, previously, worked in a community assistant role within Housing, which is essentially working with people’s keys. Any of our service desks around the university deal with brass keys to be able to get in and out of your residence hall. She had a lot of great relevant experience that translated well to our operations.”
In her second and final year as an undergrad, Barrier again worked as the community assistant coordinator for the service desk.
Last summer, she again worked for Conference and Guest Services, this time as a conference services specialist. Barrier described this as an “office-heavy role,” in which she answered calls from clients on campus to resolve issues, and handled billing as well.
“She was always ready to lend a hand whenever a need arose,” Sachtleben said. “Throughout the summer, there were many instances of unexpected emergencies – whether someone was locked out of their room, a key malfunctioned, an access card was misplaced or something similar. No matter the issue, she consistently maintained a positive attitude and made sure our clients were well taken care of. Her presence on my team was incredibly valuable.”
Over the summer, NC State often houses students from other universities who have internships in the Raleigh area, and Barrier worked with this group as well, hosting two different programs: a resume-building workshop and a “build a snack pack” activity.
During the 2024-25 school year, Barrier is working as a graduate assistant in residential learning for the Exploratory Studies Village. Her primary responsibility in this role is overseeing seven village mentors who are based in Owen Residence Hall.
“I just make sure that they have everything they need to be successful in their roles,” Barrier said.
This includes frequently meeting with the mentors, who are in charge of hosting programming for the students in the village, both as a group and individually. Barrier handles administrative duties such as sending out a monthly newsletter, and receiving feedback from the students about what they want to see in the village.
Barrier also said she had discussions with the village mentors about what their roles entail, and how to handle certain situations.
“I really love the aspect of just coaching student staff through it, because this is ultimately where I found my passion and where I wanted to go with my career, working in a student staff position,” Barrier said. “I don’t expect everyone to want to do this for the rest of their life, but I want them to be able to look back and view this experience as a really positive and beneficial one, regardless.”
Barrier has now worked in three of University Housing’s various sub-departments, and discovered how many different possibilities she could find in a future housing/student affairs career.
“I am so grateful for all of the opportunities that I’ve had through university housing. I don’t really know where I’m going to end up after I graduate, but at the forefront is anywhere in housing for a university, just because of all the opportunities that I’ve had.”
Building Community
When asked to explain the student development side of her graduate program, Barrier said that it’s about creating the on-site experience for college students, and that she’s very interested in working with first-year students, which is what her current job entails.
“It’s just making sure that they have all that they need to adapt to college,” Barrier said. “This is the first time a lot of people are away from home. It’s about what we can do to make this easier for people, and what we can do to create an environment where they feel safe and supported, and they are able to learn and grow. They can learn their course material, but they can also become independent, social beings that they might not have had the opportunity to before this.”
Barrier understands better than most the importance of fostering a community for incoming college students.
She came to NC State from her hometown of Marshville, North Carolina, a small town in the Charlotte area with a population of roughly 2,700 people, allowing Barrier the unique perspective to help students making a similar leap to a big school/city from a small-town background.
“I feel like it’s hard to understand what it’s like to be from a small town unless you are,” Barrier said. “This is night and day to me. That can be part of what makes the transition so hard, is that if you come from a town where you know everyone, everyone knows who you are, and suddenly you’re here, and nobody knows your name. Something that’s really important to me is looking at my future career working with students and making sure people have communities, that they have somewhere to go that they can fit in. They can get the small-town feel, even on a campus like this and you know they always have someone to depend on.”
A Future in Student Affairs
In her free time, Barrier loves to travel, something she’s done from a young age. She’s one of few Americans who can say they’ve been to all 50 states in the country, and travels to new cities as often as she can, with the 2024 fall semester including trips to San Francisco and Chicago.
“I’ve grown up in North Carolina my whole life, and I feel like that puts me in such a bubble,” Barrier said. “And then I get to see the rest of the world, especially in a small community. Raleigh is a big city, but not a huge city. I think it’s really awesome getting to see different places, how different people live and their cultures and environments.”
Barrier has now started practicum for her graduate program, and is working with the university’s psychology advising department this semester. She’ll complete 100 hours of practicum this semester, and 600 in the 2025-26 school year.
“I’m really, really excited for that,” Barrier said. “I was in psychology here, so I have some base-level knowledge. I’m excited about that, being able to meet with students and people who are trying to determine what they want to do in their future. Psychology is so broad. There are so many different directions you can go. Even the people I’ve met in psychology, very few of them go the direction I do. I think that’s really unique. You can do pretty much anything with a psychology degree in terms of next steps.”
After receiving her degree, Barrier is not sure of exactly what her next steps will look like yet, but she knows she wants to explore various careers in the student affairs field, helping college students find their path in and outside of the classroom.
“I love housing because I’ve had so many opportunities and experiences already, and I feel like I know it a lot better than a lot of different things,” Barrier said. “But also, as I’m trying academic advising, that’s something that I consider a lot. There’s a lot of different places that I can see myself in. Student conduct is a really interesting topic. There’s a lot of discourse around academic probation, what that is and how beneficial stuff like that is. Student conduct and just these people all wanted to go to college. When you’ve made a mistake and done something that gets you sent to student conduct, how can we use that as something productive? I really like the idea of being a part of that side of things.”
This post was originally published in DASA.
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