vburnett@mills.edu

Vala has been a member of the Admission Office since her graduation from Mills College in 2005. However, like many of our transfer students, her path to Mills was far from traditional.

While she first experienced Mills as a senior in high school, she was not very interested in college - and not at ALL interested in a women's college! Fortunately, her mother (who had gone to a women's college) convinced her to attend the overnight program at Mills. When she remembers this time she states, "I fell in love! Mills was so much more than I had expected! The campus, the students, the faculty, the classes - everything was amazing! I decided right then and there that I wanted to attend Mills." Vala attended West Valley Community College for two years to help prepare herself for the academic rigor of Mills College. During this time she was active in the West Valley MasterWorks Chorale and became a member of Alpha Gamma Sigma, a community college honor society. She transferred into Mills in 2003. She rowed with the crew team for a year and later served as Treasurer of the Senior Class. She graduated from Mills in 2005 as a PLEA Legal major (Political, Legal and Economic Analysis major with a Legal emphasis) and a Child Development minor.

Vala currently works with both transfer and first year students. She really enjoys working with both groups because she vividly remembers considering Mills as a first year student and then coming to Mills as a transfer student. As an Admission Counselor, she appreciates the relationships that she has developed with her students. Each year she looks forward to three things - watching her new students arrive for Orientation, seeing her previous students graduate from Mills each spring and developing relationships with a whole new group of students for the upcoming semester. She says, "I hope you'll be one of them!"