Two and a half years ago I started down a path to a new degree. I had reached a kind of glass ceiling that didn’t allow me to move up in the working world and experience new challenges. I tried changing jobs to take a promotion but that didn’t work out so well, and that in itself is another long story. But one of the things that hit me hard was an experienced division manager looking me square in the face and asking me point blank why I didn’t have a four year degree. That was embarrassing. But what followed hurt me more, he asked if I thought I could run the local office. He was from another division and was most likely going to fire the manager who had hired me, and this was a way of telling me I might have had the chance at being the office manager if had a four year degree.
I told him I’d like to think I could do a good job, but was realistic enough and perhaps a bit humble enough to also tell him I wasn’t ready and didn’t have quite enough experience. He thought that was a good answer and we got along very well. He had me work with one other person in the office and between the two of us we managed the end of the critical project we were working on. All this after our direct manager resigned, probably seeing the writing on the wall. But it all got me to thinking… maybe I need that four year degree.
At the time, I recently had a friend who graduated the accelerated continuing studies program at Whitworth College, obtaining a degree in Organizational Management. Since that was the direction I felt my strengths were in, I contacted him, got the details and then contacted an advisor at the college. The rest is now history.
Twenty classes, two and a half years, a name change from Whitworth College to Whitworth University, and I’m done. Read the rest of this entry »
Entries (RSS)