Running head: EDUCATION AND PERCEPTION 1

EDUCATION AND PERCEPTION: THEN AND NOW Tammie Hardrick Excelsior College SOCIAL SCIENCE CAPSTONE - Jul 2011 - Section 2

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The social science capstone is the last class of a twenty seven year journey. The classes I have taken over the decades have done as much to encourage new interests as they reflect the many interests I have had. My two main areas of focus are technology and psychology. They may seem two very different areas but turns out they represent me quite well. This capstone is the combination of how my personal learning style and subjects have evolved over the years. It may be the end of one chapter but my enthusiasm and love of learning in all forms suggests it may be a beginning as well. In 1984, I started my family and my college studies. I gave birth to a beautiful daughter, married my best friend and high school sweetheart and started a nursing degree at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. The most important thing I learned in the nursing program was I really dont like blood or needles. The most important thing I learned outside of class was life happens and you just have to roll with it. I began a fifteen year career as an optician quickly moving into the role as manager of a small Optometrists optical dispensary. I decided to add a few basic business classes to enhance my skills. I also took my first in a long series of certification tests, The American Board of Opticianry to demonstrate my occupational competency. The thought of a degree crossed my mind. My mother had never finished high school and my father joined the work force right out of high school, but both stressed education as important. I added a few basics towards a business degree at the local junior college. In 1987 with our son on the way, full time work and a precocious daughter, there was just no time and the idea of a degree quickly faded again into the

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background of a very busy life. The degree focus may have been gone but the learning always continued. Fast forward a decade. My husband and I owned a local optical shop. Our daughter was academically gifted and needed an advocate to fight a school system designed to least common denominator. Her 1st grade teacher suggested we ask her to speak more like a child. It turned out she had used a few five dollar words the teacher had to look up. By 5th grade, she was breezing through College Algebra but the school administration felt the other students would somehow catch up. One of her teachers told us, In the meantime it is great that she can grade papers and tutor the others. My son on the other hand was struggling with learning to read and big sisters shadow. My parents decided to practice what they had always preached about the importance of education and went back to school; my father earning dual BS degrees and a Masters in mathematics; my mother her GED and eventually her Masters degree as well. In my desire to understand the human behavior around me and looking for the means to help our children, my learning focus of the early 90s shifted to psychology with a heavy focus on the education of the gifted child. With my daughter settled on a path leading to Illinois Math and Science Academy, my sons reading problems solved by a creative teachers introduction of all things Tolkien, life started to settle down. Throughout the middle 90s I took a few classes just because they sounded like fun and the impending technology boom of late 90s pre Y2K panic offered a lot of opportunity to get my geek on! This time my classes changed my career path. I joined the tech sector as a systems engineer and my classes turned into seminars, conferences and technical certifications.

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I started some online degree programs in the early age of on line degrees but found the lack of interaction was less than fulfilling. I did continue with many technical classes. There is always a new technology, program, shiny object to keep me interested. Most classes were three to five days; perfect for the working mom and wife. I consulted a bit and found a 7 year work home with a good balance of life and work. Again life intervened again in 2006. The company I was working for, Convergys Corp, joined the outsourcing craze and closed the office where I worked. Not wanting to relocate, I took a position at a private four year college. The behind the scenes view of the accreditation process and course development was revealing. I started really looking at the current state of adult education and how most programs just dont meet the needs of a modern working adult. The thought of needing to redo years of general education classes to finish a degree seemed absurd. My skill set in the tech sector keeps me employable. Would math class decades after high school really help my career? Do I have time to sit in a class room, real or virtual, to take classes that have no application to my life or interests because it is a prerequisite? Yet, a degree would look good on a resume. I started looking for an accredited institution that respected what I had learned in and out of the traditional classroom and would allow me to continue to build skills that not only met a prerequisite on paper but applied to my life as well. A Google search and many hours of combing online forums lead me to Excelsior in the fall of 2010; an institution that not only got the various forms of learning I have had over the years, but embraced them. The funny thing is, as I started to gather credits to finish my degree I began to explore alternative methods of credit that interested me. I took some Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on line classes as filler credits and found they really interested me. I took

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classes on the ITIL service management framework to gain credit in a manner that enhanced my resume. I realized I may be able to combine my early psychology credits, my business credits, my tech certifications, technical project management history, ITIL certifications and some Homeland Security and FEMA courses in a manner that makes sense. I may just have found the future wave in my career path. Project Manager over Disaster Recovery and Emergency Planning has a nice ring to it.