My Educational Bucket List
The 2007 comedy-drama film The Bucket List, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, depicts two strangers who are worlds apart, bound by their terminal illnesses, who embark on a road trip with a wish list of things to do before they “kick the bucket.” The two go skydiving, climb the Great Pyramids, go on safari and visit the Taj Mahal, among other things, before they realize that reconnecting with loved ones is the key to their happiness. While this is admittedly a bit of a melodramatic example for an essay about my future as a learner, the premise that our lives are fleeting and we need to remember to live authentically provides me with a compass to help guide my continued educational path.
I actually created my own bucket list in 1999, soon after I quit a job I loved and decided to be a stay at home mom. I knew this would be a temporary arrangement and wanted to use the time to take stock in where I’d been and what I wanted for my future. Attending graduate school was on the list, though I knew not what that educational endeavor would look like. I do now and I also have a clearer picture of where my resumed career path will lead. However, the act of scratching off “attend graduate school” on my bucket list only served to create more educational pursuits to add to my list.
Thanks to Dr. Steven Weiland’s course, EAD 882 Education in the Digital Age, I have already begun to hack together a plan to use the internet to study gerontology so that I may more fully understand aging and apply that learning to my work with our older students who are back in school in order to re-career. Many have been downsized and need to re-skill in order to find work in high demand jobs. My work involves managing programs at the Center for Health Careers, a noncredit certificate, short-term job skill training center. I plan to use the following resources, and more, which cover gerontology broadly and also focus on the problems relating to the issues older students have in their transition: YouTube U, a place where universities and colleges place free educational content; Big Think, featuring interactive blogs and articles; and MIT AgeLab, where cutting edge research on aging is done to translate technologies into practical solutions for improving lives.
By using free internet resources I plan to eventually add a Blog to this website so I can continually update and share new information with colleagues, faculty, students and others interested in the topics of aging and education. Prior to starting this master’s program I never envisioned how my online learning experience could potentially reach others and broaden their knowledge in this way. I find I am more eager to embrace new technologies and hope my experience and enthusiasm will rub off on other older students like me.
Another of aspect of living my career authentically is the promise I made to myself to do “purposeful work.” For me, this means doing work that affects and/or supports people in a positive way. My career history includes work in health care, social services and nonprofit service agencies. I now am working to serve others in the education field. Two new areas of interest I have in developing new knowledge and skills are in Career Coaching and Service Learning. Oakland University has a Career Development Facilitator Certificate I’m planning to pursue. I believe this knowledge will allow me greater authority when I am assisting my students with choosing educational or career planning. My path to learning about Service Learning won’t be as structured. I plan to engage our college’s Service Learning Coordinator in order to help me define how our faculty can engage our students in Service Learning, even though they are with us a much shorter time then in a traditional semester-long classroom. Still, often the path to new career opportunities is through volunteer work and I hope to find ways our students can add that to their networking resources.
Insofar that I am currently working in a continuing education office, I thoroughly embrace the idea of lifelong learning. However, since completing my master’s program, what I consider “worth learning” has evolved somewhat. For instance, I never expected to be as interested in the P-12 educational system as I am now after studying educational theories in my MAED program. So while I’m not so much interested in learning opportunities on this subject in order to advance my career path, I’m very much interested in the debate regarding school reform and will look forward to peripherally studying the debate for personal interests.
Lastly, I’m toying with the idea of adding teaching and obtaining a PhD to my educational bucket list. I may like to add to the current curriculum on aging and education and believe in order to do so I would need further study to accomplish this goal. However, right now, I’m looking forward to a break in the demands of formal education and am dreaming about crossing other goals off my bucket list like “become a yoga instructor.” I think my body and spirit are demanding a little more attention these days!
I actually created my own bucket list in 1999, soon after I quit a job I loved and decided to be a stay at home mom. I knew this would be a temporary arrangement and wanted to use the time to take stock in where I’d been and what I wanted for my future. Attending graduate school was on the list, though I knew not what that educational endeavor would look like. I do now and I also have a clearer picture of where my resumed career path will lead. However, the act of scratching off “attend graduate school” on my bucket list only served to create more educational pursuits to add to my list.
Thanks to Dr. Steven Weiland’s course, EAD 882 Education in the Digital Age, I have already begun to hack together a plan to use the internet to study gerontology so that I may more fully understand aging and apply that learning to my work with our older students who are back in school in order to re-career. Many have been downsized and need to re-skill in order to find work in high demand jobs. My work involves managing programs at the Center for Health Careers, a noncredit certificate, short-term job skill training center. I plan to use the following resources, and more, which cover gerontology broadly and also focus on the problems relating to the issues older students have in their transition: YouTube U, a place where universities and colleges place free educational content; Big Think, featuring interactive blogs and articles; and MIT AgeLab, where cutting edge research on aging is done to translate technologies into practical solutions for improving lives.
By using free internet resources I plan to eventually add a Blog to this website so I can continually update and share new information with colleagues, faculty, students and others interested in the topics of aging and education. Prior to starting this master’s program I never envisioned how my online learning experience could potentially reach others and broaden their knowledge in this way. I find I am more eager to embrace new technologies and hope my experience and enthusiasm will rub off on other older students like me.
Another of aspect of living my career authentically is the promise I made to myself to do “purposeful work.” For me, this means doing work that affects and/or supports people in a positive way. My career history includes work in health care, social services and nonprofit service agencies. I now am working to serve others in the education field. Two new areas of interest I have in developing new knowledge and skills are in Career Coaching and Service Learning. Oakland University has a Career Development Facilitator Certificate I’m planning to pursue. I believe this knowledge will allow me greater authority when I am assisting my students with choosing educational or career planning. My path to learning about Service Learning won’t be as structured. I plan to engage our college’s Service Learning Coordinator in order to help me define how our faculty can engage our students in Service Learning, even though they are with us a much shorter time then in a traditional semester-long classroom. Still, often the path to new career opportunities is through volunteer work and I hope to find ways our students can add that to their networking resources.
Insofar that I am currently working in a continuing education office, I thoroughly embrace the idea of lifelong learning. However, since completing my master’s program, what I consider “worth learning” has evolved somewhat. For instance, I never expected to be as interested in the P-12 educational system as I am now after studying educational theories in my MAED program. So while I’m not so much interested in learning opportunities on this subject in order to advance my career path, I’m very much interested in the debate regarding school reform and will look forward to peripherally studying the debate for personal interests.
Lastly, I’m toying with the idea of adding teaching and obtaining a PhD to my educational bucket list. I may like to add to the current curriculum on aging and education and believe in order to do so I would need further study to accomplish this goal. However, right now, I’m looking forward to a break in the demands of formal education and am dreaming about crossing other goals off my bucket list like “become a yoga instructor.” I think my body and spirit are demanding a little more attention these days!