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By Yulissa Gonazalez
As we are getting closer to the 4th month of this school year teachers are gathering lessons and getting grades in. Another group of hard working people are counselors who are getting ready to prepare students for life after high school. Although times will get hard for them the students will keep them going. For Nyia Roberts her students are what have been keeping her growing these past few years.
Ms. Roberts is now in her second year of being an official guidance counselor and fourth year here in this Yerba Buena community she is excited to meet one on one with her students and hear about their plans for this school year. And despite having many students to work with, she will always do her best to talk and get to know every single one of her students.
Ms. Roberts sees her job as a passion more than a job. Throughout her high school experience she did really good in school but back at home it was a different story. At the time she was the oldest of ten siblings, two living in the same household so she would care for them and juggling school and home was very difficult for her at times. So when she had to go to college it was harder for her to leave her siblings.
Ms. Roberts: “I struggled at home. I had a lot to take care of. I worked. I had um I was on the cheerleading team. I was president of a club. and then I was also taking care of my brothers when I was at home. And so going off to college for me was really hard, but it was something that I knew I had to do in order to make a better life for myself.”
She had a lot of support throughout the way but it didn’t stop the fact that she experienced some racism and other experiences that no one should go through in college.Until she found her group and people who made her feel comfortable and happy she had an amazing rest of her college years.
Ms. Roberts: “So college was also difficult, but I had a lot of support along the way. I faced some racism and some different experiences that I just never thought I would experience in college. And it made it difficult to navigate. But once I found my people, my college experience got a lot better and I had a lot of fun.”
During high school she was a part of the college access program named DCAC. While being there she met Yadira, her advisor really pushed her to do more. In fact she inspired her to go to college and keep going. Being a high school student she really loved what her advisor was doing and how good she helped students and made them feel comfortable. She felt it was powerful and the fact that Yadira was similar to Ms. Roberts had so much to do with it too.
Ms. Roberts: “My DCAC advisor inspired me to go to college. I thought it was really cool that I had an advisor who was so young and had a college degree and was supporting like me and looked like me, looked similar to me. That was really powerful for me.”
Ms. Roberts went to Sonoma State University for her bachelors degree. She then went to San Jose State for her masters degree and while being there she was here at Yerba Buena being a DCAC advisor so when she hit the rough patches she realized that her students were the ones keeping her going and she felt this was really her passion.
Despite trying other high schools and middle schools our YB community has really felt comfortable and safe to Ms. Roberts and every day she has come to work it will always be a good day thanks to her students who have kept her going.
Ms. Roberts: “I've worked at other high schools and other middle schools, but there's just something special about the students that I get to work with at YB. My students are so caring and grateful. They're so kind, all of my students have been super welcoming to the campus and they make every day, like a special day. So every day that I get to come to work is a good day for me.”
Although most days are amazing there are some hard ones. For Ms. Roberts, one of her hardest days was losing one of her students, DJ Singh. He was one of her first students she worked with at YB. He greeted her every morning and she actually had seen him the Friday before he passed. The loss in general was really hurtful but seeing her students she loves and cares for mourning and hurting also hurt her as well.
Ms. Roberts: “DJ Singh in 2023.He was one of the first students that I got to work with here at YB when I was working for the college access program 10,000 degrees, so I got to spend a lot of time with DJ, he greeted me every morning and so I even saw him the Friday before he passed away. So it was really, really hard for me and just supporting my students through that was also really difficult. It's really hard when you see the students that you love, grieving so hard.”
Ms. Roberts is my new counselor this year and from the interactions we have had I can truly tell she loves doing what she does and her intentions are really to help her students from struggling and going on the right path. She tries to keep her students motivated despite what she has gone through.
Ms. Roberts has definitely had some amazing memories and some hard ones but she will always find a way to get through them with the help of her students, loved ones, and her dogs. She will never back down from a hard day. Ms. Roberts lives every day loving what she does.
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