Harper Talks Episode 41 - Sarah Alhayek

Harper Talks Episode 41 – Sarah Alhayek

Transcript

Harper Talks: The Harper Alumni Podcast
Show 41: Sarah Alhayek – Harper Talks — Transcript

[00:00:00.350] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Today on Harper Talks, I'm excited to speak with Sara Alhayak. She attended Harper College from 2013 to 2015, is an employee engagement generalist for Aldi, and she joined me in the A building studio of WHCM. How are you doing? 

[00:00:22.050] - Sarah Alhayek 

I'm wonderful. How are you today? 

[00:00:24.110] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

I'm fantastic. You said a minute ago that you're nervous. Why are you nervous? 

[00:00:28.630] - Sarah Alhayek 

Talking about yourself a whole population of people, trying to give them the best advice and tell them all about yourself can be a little nerve-wracking sometimes. 

[00:00:36.010] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Well, we'll just have a conversation together. It'll be all right. 

[00:00:38.550] - Sarah Alhayek 

That sounds great. 

[00:00:39.210] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

All right, good. But I do appreciate you coming out today and spending time with us. Tell me about your choice to come to Harper College. Why did you come to Harper as a student? 

[00:00:48.610] - Sarah Alhayek 

I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life coming out of high school. I think it was actually nerve-wracking then, too, because all my friends knew exactly what they wanted, the big universities they were going to. I had no idea. I didn't want to stop getting an education because my parents were actually very pressuring on like, you need to continue your education. 

[00:01:07.650] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Right. 

[00:01:08.410] - Sarah Alhayek 

And Harper is very affordable. It gave me the opportunity to just take classes and find my foot. 

[00:01:15.300] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

So did you grow up in the area here? 

[00:01:16.970] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah, I'm actually from Schaumburg, so not too far away at all. 

[00:01:20.900] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Were any of your friends coming to Harper when you were. 

[00:01:23.840] - Sarah Alhayek 

No, it was really just me. All of my friends are going to NYU, UIC. Some of them went out Colorado out of state. So it was lonely, actually. But I made a bunch of friends coming into Harper. So it was really nice. I found a great community of people because Schaumburg is maybe a little bit more of a Caucasian area. I am a big minority person, so coming to Harper, a lot of culture. 

[00:01:52.030] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah, we have people from all over the world here at Harper, and it's something that unless you come on to campus and walk around, I don't think people really recognize it or appreciate it, which also shows how diverse this community itself is. Then when you bring all that together in this one location here on the Harper campus, you're like, Oh, my goodness. Where did all these people come from? 

[00:02:10.490] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah, because I'm Arab, and I just did not find people like me. I came in, and there was international students coming in learning English, and it was just really nice getting that community set out here. 

[00:02:22.310] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah, it's fantastic. You were talking about your friends who all went off to the big schools. One of the things that I found when I started here, and this is going sound really negative, but I don't mean for it to be. I found a lot of students who would show up spring semester and were doing the get to know you session, and they're like, well, last year I went to the University of Alabama, but now I'm here at Harper. There are a lot of students who left and went to the big schools, and they were not prepared to go there. They wound up coming back home and then going to Harper and then getting themselves prepared and then able to transfer off to the school. If I were you, I wouldn't feel you know.. 

[00:03:00.740] - Sarah Alhayek 

A lot of my friends may not have come in with me, but you definitely found them a year later, actually. 

[00:03:08.340] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

So you experienced that yourself? 

[00:03:09.780] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yes, 100%. 

[00:03:11.350] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

It's pretty wild, right? 

[00:03:12.680] - Sarah Alhayek 

I know. It was nice to be that first person here at Harper and experience that before they came in. 

[00:03:19.120] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

While you were here, you were involved in all kinds of really cool stuff. I know that you were heavily involved with campus activities board. Tell me about that. What exciting things did you all do on that? 

[00:03:29.670] - Sarah Alhayek 

I got to meet R. J. Mitt from Breaking Bad, and we had dinner with him, too. So that was probably one of the most interesting and coolest experiences I ever had. I got to introduce him to a whole population of people at Harper when he came to present. So that really built my public speaking, actually. And then we had a Native American cultural month. So we went out to the museum. It's in ....By the Schaumburg Library. We got to extend out into the community, bring them in. I got to meet a bunch of vendors, got to work with bigger organizations, and it gave me the experience I needed to be where I'm at now. 

[00:04:13.900] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah, that's fantastic. So working in campus activities board and working with student engagement allows you the opportunity to grow as a professional and as a person, right? 

[00:04:24.010] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah, and it continued on to my university after that, too. 

[00:04:27.440] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Okay. Where did you transfer to? 

[00:04:29.310] - Sarah Alhayek 

Roosevelt University in Chicago. So they do have a Schaumburg location, but I was in the city. 

[00:04:33.240] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

What was it like for you transferring there? Did you feel like you were ready when you got there? 

[00:04:38.810] - Sarah Alhayek 

I was, honestly. Yeah. Harper, some of their classes were actually harder than the ones at Roosevelt University. But it gave me the confidence to understand how to get that education because going to college is different than high school. Those classes can be a little bit more challenging. But I honestly, I think at first really missed Harper my first semester, all I wanted to do was go back, but I did find a good community out there, too. So Harper really did help me develop into that as well. 

[00:05:08.310] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

That's great. What involvement were you doing while you were there? 

[00:05:10.880] - Sarah Alhayek 

I continue to do a student activities board out there. We actually planned a homecoming at the Sox Stadium, so that was really cool, too. 

[00:05:19.460] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

That's fun. That sounds like a good time. Tell me, what did you major in while you were at Roosevelt? 

[00:05:25.020] - Sarah Alhayek 

Originally, I did psychology with a concentration in neuroscience. I wanted to go into neuropsych. I really like testing. I left with that to become a behavioral specialist, and I completely changed my career. 

[00:05:37.530] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Okay. What is a behavioral specialist? Tell me. I don't know what that is. No, no, no. 

[00:05:40.620] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah, yeah. You're working in the mental health field. I worked with younger girls who had anxiety, depression, social skills that they needed to work on. It was a really stressful job. It definitely triggers you seeing those young girls going through that. It was hard to do that mental health field for me, at least. I went on and actually got a master's after that. Okay. Did industrial organizational psychology and business administration. I stayed in the psychology field, but it was more for businesses. That's what I'm doing now. 

[00:06:15.640] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Well, still tell me about that. What are you doing now? 

[00:06:18.130] - Sarah Alhayek 

I am doing employee engagement at Aldi. Industrial organizational psychology is the behavior in the workplace. I'm getting to make people at Aldi feel more comfortable, whether it's from our stores and warehouses, to our corporate offices. So that's really cool. Setting up a recognition event to acknowledge our employees' hard work. And I'm also getting to do an engagement activity for the holiday time where we provide them gift cards to help give them holiday meals, like Thanksgiving meals. 

[00:06:49.390] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

It's pretty cool. So is this a human resources position? 

[00:06:53.540] - Sarah Alhayek 

It is within human resources, yeah. It's more under the diversity, equity, inclusion area as well. Okay. 

[00:07:00.090] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Let's talk about that for a second. I know that you worked for a while, did an internship doing diversity, equity, and inclusion with the village of Arlington Heights. What was that like? 

[00:07:10.100] - Sarah Alhayek 

It was actually a really good first step into understanding my future career. I worked with them on creating more of a diversity, equity, inclusion impact for their employees. So we worked on doing an inclusion group, getting different people from police force, firefighters, people within and the actual municipal government together to work on creating that diversity and inclusion feel for their employees. And then I moved on at ALDI. 

[00:07:41.530] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Okay. I'm curious. There's been a lot of, what do I want to say? Political pushback about diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Why do you think that is? 

[00:07:52.770] - Sarah Alhayek 

Well, actually, I did a thesis paper on diversity for Roosevelt, and was about Hippocratic diversity. I think right now the focus of diversity for a lot of companies goes up beyond what it should be. Diversity should be making a culture for people, and I think they prioritize minority groups so much that it takes away from that inclusion. They're stereotyping people and identifying them to make it a little uncomfortable. I think you're trying to up an opportunity for certain people who, don't get me wrong, I'm Arab, I'm Muslim. I am a minority myself. But you start stereotyping those people, identifying those people. I think it almost fires back some companies, and a lot of it is face value sometimes. It's great working for Aldi because they're not like that at all, actually. 

[00:08:50.810] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

That's interesting. A while back, we had a speaker here at the school, and we talk about here at Harvard about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And he was talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but he added the word belonging. And I think that's a word that's missing from these conversations. And I think that's what you're talking about, right? Everybody in the culture of the company has to feel like they belong there, right? And rather than putting people into groups, we need to make sure that everyone feels like they belong. 

[00:09:23.140] - Sarah Alhayek 

And there is that face value issue, right? What are people really doing with that diversity idea? Other than identifying. So belonging is actually a really great word to support that. Yeah. 

[00:09:36.640] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Okay. You're bilingual. 

[00:09:38.470] - Sarah Alhayek 

I am. I speak Arabic. 

[00:09:39.850] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

And English. 

[00:09:40.540] - Sarah Alhayek 

And English. 

[00:09:40.890] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Of course. Yeah. Does that come into play in your daily life? Does Does it affect your work? 

[00:09:47.160] - Sarah Alhayek 

I think when you speak another language, the way you think actually changes, right? Right. Like one word in Arabic can mean a whole sentence in English. So it gives you a grasp of conceptually, when you're speaking and what you're understanding from people, I think you think beyond boundaries. I don't know, that's really weird to think sometimes, but it gives me a good perspective on how I'm saying things and what that can be interpreted to people. Because English was my second language growing up, but now I'm bilingual. 

[00:10:21.160] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Well, I often ask people who were English as their second language as a question, which language do you dream in? Oof. 

[00:10:30.090] - Sarah Alhayek 

That's interesting, right? I think it could go back and forth. Some things to me, I'd be translating from Arabic to English, even when I'm speaking English. And I can translate things from English to Arabic when I'm speaking Arabic very equally. I don't know how to explain that to you. It is weird. I don't know. 

[00:10:49.930] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

It's funny because I'll ask people, and some folks who they grew up speaking another language, and then in their teen years, switched to English. Maybe when they immigrated to the United States, they dream in English. But then if you ask their parents, they'll tell you that they dream in their original mother language, their mother tongue. I find that very interesting. The people who spoke the language longer throughout their lives dream in that language. I think it's an interesting thing. 

[00:11:14.660] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah, that is actually really cool. I'm going to have to think about next time when I go to bed. 

[00:11:19.290] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Start asking people that. See what they see what they say. You were involved with a lot of stuff while you're here on campus. I'm just curious, what would you suggest students do with their time here? How What should students do while they're in school? What do you think? What would make their lives better? 

[00:11:33.960] - Sarah Alhayek 

In the future, when you're working, work-life balance is really important, right? And that can mean working, like studying. And that can be finding that social aspect back to that sense of belonging. There's that belonging word again. Take advantage of it. Harper offered so many things, even being somebody active at school. I didn't utilize the career development area: helping  you create resumes, fixing up your resume. I wish I had that. I wish I could have gone back to that. I made friends through the Student Activities Board, and I have horrible social anxiety. So getting into that actually increased my confidence. Getting to know people, networking, moving on into Roosevelt, I met a peer. I think my confidence from Harper and creating those relationships helped me pursue speaking with people because I was very introverted. I was a minority in my high school, so it was hard to connect with other people. I got my job through a friend. I think really meeting as many people as you can at Harper, finding your niche, just getting to know what's around you, creating those connections with your professors. Craig Stettner, he was a professor here. He did pass away, unfortunately, but he wrote me my letter of recommendation to get into Roosevelt. 

[00:12:57.130] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

That's so nice. What was it like with Craig? 

[00:13:01.120] - Sarah Alhayek 

He was so sweet. He was great. He really made you think outside the box. There was animals there. He was a very knowledgeable, great guy. He almost felt like a dad. I don't know how to say it, but he was a great guy. 

[00:13:13.120] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah, I did not know him well, but what I know of him, this is my memory of him. And I think, personally, a good memory is just seeing him in wading boots, walking down the hallway with 20 students following behind him, gleefully going out to wade in the mud to go out and collect samples and stuff out at the marsh and that thing. And I always thought, how cool would it be to be in that guy's class? 

[00:13:36.960] - Sarah Alhayek 

It was so cool. And then we went out in the morning for walks, and he identified the birds for us. He was so knowledgeful. It was such a cool class. I don't think I've ever taken a class like that. 

[00:13:46.560] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah, every student I've ever spoken to who took his classes has said very similar things. So yeah, it's good of you to remember him that way, and it's good for him to be remembered by his students. So I appreciate that. That's great. I I asked you this in a different way, but I will ask you just the last question here. What advice do you have for students at Harper College besides getting involved with student engagement and that thing? What's the big thing to do? 

[00:14:13.760] - Sarah Alhayek 

Big thing is don't be scared to be yourself. Honestly, you will find a sense of belonging with wherever you are if you make the decision to go out of your comfort zone. There are so many opportunities to take different classes here. If you don't know where going with your career, I took a business law class from a chemistry class to... I mean, there are gen-eds, right? But zoology, botany, whatever made me decide to take those. So really looking at the classes available to you, going out meeting as many people as you can, creating those relationships with your professors. There's a huge... Harper is a huge school. It is bigger than my university. 

[00:14:56.700] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

I know. I think it's like 21,000 students or something now. 

[00:14:59.280] - Sarah Alhayek 

So, So utilize what you can here. Yeah. 

[00:15:02.590] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

I think, piggyback on your point there, I think maybe in the educational system, we do a disservice where we are trying to get students to, at 14 years old, decide what it is they want to do with their lives. Then they're supposed to go to college and pick a major when they're 17, 18, 19 years old, and that's what they're supposed to do with the rest of their lives. I'm like, as someone who's approaching 50, I have to say that I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was 16 years old. I think it's better to come to a place like Harper and explore a little bit, take some classes. Maybe you know your major is going to be psychology, but go take that pottery class. Maybe you like pottery, and maybe that winds up being a lifelong hobby or a love or something like that. Maybe that's not what you major in. I'm just using pottery as an example. No, no. Please professors, don't attack me. It's like we run a video production program here at the school. Maybe your major is not video production, but tell me what job today doesn't require some video production, right? We're always doing something with PowerPoint presentations and Instagram and TikTok and all that stuff, right? All along. Yeah, so it's all together. I appreciate you talking about that. 

[00:16:11.910] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah. Like I was saying, I am doing project management now. All the doing the Student Activities Board was all project management. Really learning concepts from the things that you're doing take you a long way in the future. 

[00:16:23.530] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah. All the stuff that you learn while you're here, even if it's in a club or in a class that you weren't taking specifically for your job or whatever, right? They come into play later for sure. 

[00:16:34.000] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah, for sure. 

[00:16:34.590] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah. Like that statistics class I took twice in college. Oh, my goodness. That one still comes in handy every once in a while. So thanks so much for being here. It was such a joy to talk to you. 

[00:16:45.120] - Sarah Alhayek 

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:16:47.390] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

And we talked before the show. You said you did a radio show here very, very briefly. 

[00:16:52.360] - Sarah Alhayek 

Oh, my goodness. Yes. I think me and my friend Mike came on here to play some music, and I knew that this career was not for me. I was not good at it, but you know what? I took a leap of faith. I tried it out, and I knew that my career was not going that way. 

[00:17:08.720] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

That's okay. That's one of the things that we espouse here at WHCM, is that it's a place where you can come and try things out and fail and feel comfortable doing it. 

[00:17:17.310] - Sarah Alhayek 

It's a really cool studio. Coming in and working this to be like this. That is super cool. 

[00:17:21.080] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Yeah. Well, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it and hope we get to talk to you again sometime soon. 

[00:17:25.090] - Sarah Alhayek 

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. 

[00:17:28.110] - Brian Shelton, Host Harper Talks 

Sarah Alhayak is one of the many great Harper alumni out in the world doing fantastic things, and she was an absolute pleasure to talk to, and we hope to hear and see more of her in the future. If you're enjoying Harper Talks, please subscribe. And while you're at it, rate and review us so that others might find us. Harper Talks is a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Our show is produced by Shannon Hynes. This episode was edited by Coby Pozo, who's very, very talented, and our online content producer is Matt Byrne. Our theme created by Aiden Cashman. I'm Brian Shelton. Thanks for listening.