Erin Lauderdale of Co-Achieving Success:
Interview With Marie Bernard
Marie Bernard is a Learning Assistant Coordinator in the Center for Student Excellence at Southeastern Louisiana University. In my interview with Marie, we discuss some of the challenges that graduate students face and how to overcome those challenges. Marie also provides tips on how to create a healthy work/life/school balance. See below for the full interview.
For more helpful tips on how to be successful in the graduate admissions process and in a graduate program, follow Co-Achieving Success on Instagram @coachievingsuccess.
"As a graduate student, you do not have time to waste, so it's all about planning."
- Marie Bernard
About the Interview
For my video, I chose to interview Marie Bernard, Learning Assistance Coordinator over the Tinsley Learning Center at Southeastern Louisiana University. Mrs. Bernard has more than twenty years of experience working in an education setting. She has worked as an academic coach, as well as an instructor and advisor. I felt that she would give a great perspective on the challenges students face and how to overcome them and be successful. Because she was also a graduate student while working and taking care of her family, she can relate to many graduate students who are balancing different aspects of life.
Before the interview, I discussed with Mrs. Bernard that the topic would be tips and advice for prospective and current graduate students for success in graduate school. I really wanted to pull from her experience working with students, as well as her own experience as a former graduate student who had to balance work, school, and a family. The target audience for the video is prospective and current graduate students across the U.S., not necessarily just Southeastern, so the tips and advice are general and geared to all graduate students.
To film the video, I invested in a tripod, which helped with stabilizing my phone for shooting the video. Since Mrs. Bernard was the focus of the interview. I sat across from her and positioned my phone on the tripod facing her at an angle. To edit the video, I used iMovie for iPhone to cut and fade portions of the video. I also added an intro and b-roll to the beginning of the video.
