Job Shadowing for Kelly Ratliff

An intensely busy day filled with meetings on student affairs and budget management.

On November 7th, 2019, I was fortunate enough to job shadow for Kelly Ratliff, the Vice Chancellor of Financial Aid and Operations for UC Davis. Kelly was a very kind and understanding leader, and managed to always pay attention to how others' thought of the situation before making her final judgments about the problem. It was really enjoyable seeing how closely she worked with the people she was talking to during her meetings, and how she seemed to keep the atmosphere of the room light even if the problem that was being dealt with was very serious.

“I deal with most of the complaints on campus.”

Kelly was definitely correct about having to deal with not only the budgeting problems, but also student relations and affairs in relation to the financial side of UC Davis. One of the most important meetings I was able to attend was that with Emily Galindo of student affairs discussing the UCPath problem, where many students on this new payroll system weren't getting paid. I really didn't expect to be asked a question during that intense meeting, but was able to express my own opinion as a student about the best way to communicate to working students about their jobs on campus. I was able to learn a lot about how the administration system works, the parts that move around within it, and most importantly, how each project is specifically funded and passed.

Kelly helped guide me through each meeting, and while we weren't able to have a debriefing at the end due to something else she had to attend, it was very enlightening to see how closely she took student problems that were correlated with the university's budgeting. She gave me info on the people that she was meeting and was very encouraging when I asked questions during those intense meetings.

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