Here are my thoughts on my personal experiences with education. Please select the play button below for the audio version of my story.
Tell my story. Adults don’t really get asked this question too much, do they? I’ve told many stories about many different versions of myself over the years. When I think of this, I picture myself in my 20's wasting time, sitting in a bar or a hostel or on the subway or bus in a different country. Another traveler or expat or local will ask me, “What are you doing here? Why’d you come?” And, with unlimited time to dream, a kinship would be born. I’ve traveled quite a bit and I think that this question of “What’s your story?” has made my life a life of introspection and self-awareness and naturally, this has taken me into education as a lifelong learner.
Probably like many people, I could never have imagined some of the things that would happen to me in my life. Places that I would go or people that I would meet. This extends to many different industries, companies and jobs that I’ve had, too.
Growing up, I suppose I have a fairly unremarkable background. The youngest of three in a middle-class white suburban family. My father had a blue collar job. My mom stayed at home to raise us....something that I’m grateful for. She worked on and off when we were younger, part-time jobs and activities and then went back to work full-time when I began middle school. We didn’t have everything, but our needs were always met.
I never loved school. But, I was an A-student, usually top of my class, in advanced placement courses. I followed the rules. I followed the rules through college. My straight As dipped to variations of Bs and on occasion, Cs. My chosen undergraduate major was all in line with what I thought I should do rather than what I wanted to do. I chose what I considered a practical degree that I thought would promise me a job straight out of college. A business degree in marketing at a higher-ranking business school in the U.S.. I took unpaid internships and worked multiple jobs to pay for school, rent, and food, barely sleeping. I had really been interested in marine biology and photography at an out-of-state school, but I thought that marketing was the safe bet and I’ll have fun hobbies on the side. My parents, teachers, and advisors agreed.
I graduated a semester early in my undergraduate degree, thinking that I deserved some time to RELAX! I yearned for a break. I decided to take some time off and save up money to travel. I worked at a mis-run coffee shop for six months and then quit to go backpacking in Europe. By the time that I returned, the 2008 recession was full-blown and there were no jobs in sight. I had always been promised that a college degree would guarantee a well-paying, stable job. And, well, that’s simply never been the case for me. I applied to hundreds of jobs during the recession and even with my degree, I was failing. I had a friend, who to the shock of our friend group, had up and moved to South Korea to teach. She said I should join her. And, so, I fell into teaching English in a countryside town in South Korea. If you know me, I talk about this period of my life often. It helped enforce my core belief system on education, as well as being a memorable period of my life leading to five years of traveling the world.
Living abroad also taught me humility and offered an expansive open-mind. It was also one of the most difficult experiences of my life. I didn’t speak the language, I had never eaten Korean food before and I wasn’t aware of the culture or what I was doing. I also had never taught before. There, I worked on perfecting my teaching, learning to read and speak Korean (aka: Hangul) and I discovered a love for helping others learn.
Now, more than 10 years later, another happenstance where I started a new job and the co-worker that I sat next to told me about my master’s program in instructional design. This ended up being my new life calling. As I’m now older and wiser from when I first began teaching….and, I also have several years of professional experience in higher education…I think about the nuances of the educational system. I’m focused on becoming an instructional designer, which really is tied strongly into education, program management and training. I’m studying a topic that I’m passionate about and love and often excel in my courses. I still recall the younger version of myself who didn’t get very much help in school and in jobs. The younger version of myself who was so unsure of what direction to go. But, I found my voice and began to advocate for myself, now older, more experienced, well-traveled and self-aware.
I never thought that I would go back to school. Not after many a Millennial’s college degrees were deemed worthless from the recession, including mine. But, time changes things. Life happens. You get knocked down and you get back up. You work to become a better version of yourself. In my case, I’ve always had a thirst for knowledge….new topics, resources, new cultures, and countries. I love to travel to discover new things and meet new people. There’s nothing that I love more than getting a new “crazy” travel story to tell to friends. And, from these experiences, I learn, I grow. My background has set me up for a love for working with students, for teaching, for building courses and being creative. I try to push friends and colleagues to be better than themselves, to take a new course, go for that promotion, to speak up even when their voice isn’t the popular one. I would never say this to a student or less experienced friend, but I see my younger self in them and want them to have the help that I didn’t. I want them to succeed. And, so I study new instructional design methods, new training methods and best practices. This elevates me to reach my dreams. And, it allows me to mentor and coach others, filling the space where younger me struggled.
Comments