For eleven years Michelle Perlin counseled the freshmen class solo, but this year the NC Counseling Department made the decision to add Nicole Blalock to the freshman counseling team. The department added Blalock to help divide the freshman and take on the sophomores, since the department felt the sophomores did not receive the care and attention they needed.  Blalock takes on A-K freshmen and sophomores while Perlin takes on L-Z freshmen and sophomores.

“We kinda felt like the sophomores were getting ignored because the first time we would meet with them would be almost towards the end of first semester. We would also only see half of them and we would see the other half second semester,” Blalock said.

Blalock, working at NC for 8 years, previously worked with the upperclassmen and plans on staying with the underclassmen because of the lack in attention the sophomores face from the former counseling design.

When Perlin took a research class in college before becoming a counselor, she performed research on counseling and learned that freshman year can become the most critical year for students.

“I was working at a high school at the time and they were talking about doing something for ninth grade. I started doing the research and I realized that’s just such a critical year— about 70% of students that don’t move from ninth grade to tenth grade end up dropping out of school,” Perlin said.

Before becoming a counselor, Blalock’ practiced forensic interviewing. The NC mentor found her calling in life and decided that this career fulfilled her passion.

“Before becoming a counselor, I interviewed child sexual abuse victims on video tape for law enforcement. I originally went to school to do therapy for those children, but when I was there they had a school counseling program and I was like, ‘you know what, this was a better fit for me’ because there is more variety,” Blalock said.

The NC counseling department believes this new adjustment will help benefit the freshman and the sophomores for when they become upperclassmen. The counselors trust that underclassmen need to feel more comfortable to talk about college and personal issues that may pose as obstacles. The counseling department thrives to normalize communication with the student body. Blalock knows this will help benefit the NC scholars of both today and the future.