The Health and Healing Career Channel recently got to catch up with alumni Jeff Braden during an event in their “Lunch With an Alum” series. Jeff is Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University. He graduated from Beloit in 1976 as a psychology major and, after spending time teaching chimpanzees sign language and getting a masters degree at Gallaudet University, completed his Ph.D. in School Psychology at University of California-Berkeley. Braden spent much of his career working as a school psychologist, but his path was far from a straight line. One of Jeff’s many pieces of wisdom was, “don’t feel like you have to have it all figured out.” Much of his advice to current students centered around this concept.

When asked what his main takeaways were from his time at Beloit, Jeff replied, “a love of learning.” He urged the people in the meeting to stay open-minded to opportunities that come along even if they don’t lead directly to your end goal. Braden also expressed that it’s not always the concrete things that you learn in a classroom that will get you where you want to go. Being able to express the broad and invaluable skills that you learn throughout life will help tremendously when striking out into a new career field.

When asked by a student what project from his long career he was most proud of, Jeff didn’t hesitate to talk about his current work helping the anti-racist efforts at NC State. He has been raising money to provide opportunities for underrepresented, and specifically black, students that they wouldn’t be able to participate in otherwise.