Celeste Robertson

EOP/SSS Advisor

Celeste.Robertson@humboldt.edu

What is it that you like to do? Where is it that you'd like to be? How hard are you willing to work to get what you want? These are the three questions Celeste Robertson asks the students that walk through her door. Working with primarily undeclared students Celeste hopes she makes a difference throughout her student's academic careers as well as after they've graduated.

"I try to be that guidance," Celeste said. "Students say I am a tough lady but only because I ask the hard questions that no one else is going to ask and that they need to hear."

Celeste knows from firsthand experience that students should have an idea and plan of what they are going to do before they graduate college. Her parents were the ones that insisted that she go out and join the workforce. "I always thought I was going to stay in my hometown but again my mother said no" Celeste said.

If she would have been in a program like EOP during to her time in college would she have benefited? "Oh, yea definitely," Celeste said. An easy yes.

After working as a Personal Management Specialist Trainee in Pennsylvania the Peace Corps reached out to Celeste to join and get her master’s degree. She joined the Peace Corps in 1971 and spent the next six years teaching English as a Foreign Language in Ivory Coast, West Africa.  After returning to the U.S., Celeste worked at Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, DC for almost three years but the allure of international travel was too strong to resist and she was hired by the United States Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer/Diplomat and served throughout West Africa for the next ten years

Celeste came to Cal Poly Humboldt in January 2008 having been hired as an Associate Director of the Career Center. In August 2009 Celeste started her position as an EOP advisor and has met and changed the lives of many students whom she genuinely cares for.

"I love my kids. I hope to make them more aware of what is going on around them and what their potential is," Celeste said. "The worst place one can be in is their comfort zone."

Celeste is an honest advisor who only wishes the best for her students. She can also tell the most amazing stories about her life, all the while learning more about her students and how she can help them get to where they want to be.