“You will reach the highest level of your profession.” It was this fortune cookie that convinced Victor Osorio to dream big and keep working towards those dreams. After graduating from Alfred University in May of 2015, the job hunt was short-lived.

“After I graduated college, I was in the ‘real world’ for a couple of months and realized that when people tell you college is going to be the best years of your life there is a lot of merit there,” Osorio said. “I looked for a career in colleges. I am extremely comfortable with the college environment.”

Despite looking like another Elizabethtown College student, he is the newest addition to the Residence Life office. At only 22 years old, he has made the first step towards his dream of moving to a high position in the field of higher education.

“There is a tremendous growth of each individual, in just a four year time span, which is phenomenal,” Osorio said. “So from experience – that happened to me as well – I want to see other people go through that and assist them in making the right decisions.”

Osorio took the role of Area Coordinator (AC) for Brinser, Hackman and the Schreiber Quadrangle Sept. 14. In his first seven days as AC, he has spent time familiarizing himself with campus by shadowing the other ACs, attending a Student Senate meeting and facilitating the Noir club meeting. He joked that he also spent much of his week reading the 87-page Area Coordinator manual.

He believes that his role as an AC is to be a resource. He wants to be able to assist students and faculty when he has the opportunity. He also said it is important that he be able to direct individuals to other campus resources, like counseling, wellness or disability services. Besides helping the students, he enjoys creating events with the resident assistants (RAs).

“I am really excited to see what my RAs have for programming and how I can assist them,” Osorio said.

Besides having an interest in his work, Osorio enjoys spending his time playing board games, watching stand-up comedy or playing sports. In his free time, he can usually be found watching Titantic or Balto, his two favorite childhood movies.

Osorio describes himself as born and raised in the Bronx. Born to a first-generation immigrant from the Dominican Republic, Osorio got to experience the United States and his mother’s home country. He attended bilingual schools and later became the first in his family to graduate from college.

The new AC was proud of his time at Alfred University and the work he did to pay for college on his own. During his college career, Osorio changed his major five times in his four years, eventually settling on business administration. It was these classes and skills that he used to find his passion for working in higher education. He spent the time he wasn’t using to mull over his major to participate in several clubs and work on-campus jobs.

As a college student, he dreamt big, allowing his hope of achieving the fortune cookies promises to guide his actions. His graduation marked only the first of his recent successes and his hard work was rewarded with his first position.

“There is a real satisfaction when you remember how bad it was and see how good it is now and you know it was because of the hard work you put in,” Osorio said.

Though he has spent only one week on campus, he is already working towards ultimate goal is to pursue a career as a college or university dean. With his first job secured and underway, he plans to work with those goals in mind.

“Where I come from, you are really limited in what you can do,” Osorio said. “And at that point in college, I was working really hard to make sure that when I decided what I wanted to do, I could do it.”