Growing up both my parents were very adamant about me going to go college and getting an education. I took a budget course for higher education and it taught me the value of human capital and investing yourself in education to improving myself with skills that can contribute to the workforce and society. I started at Wilbur Wright Community College to take general education courses and in 2001 I applied into the radiography program at Wilbur Wright College and I completed the program with an associates degree in Applied Science in 2003. Afterwards, I became an x-ray technologist at Northwestern Medicine. In 2008, I went back to school finish my bachelors degree in healthcare leadership from the University of St. Francis. I told myself, “why stop now?“ one can never go wrong with human capital, so I started looking into graduate schools.
Going into the Master of Arts in Education (MAED) at Michigan State University my intent was to keep up and complete the program within five years. I feel that people need to have a plan when they want to accomplish something, but do not plan too far ahead because life can surprise you. Once I completed half the program my goals started to change and that was to learn as much as possible about education. I wanted to invest in myself to improve my communication skills in my current work setting and in the hopes of becoming an educator in the future. I chose education by reason of coaching basketball for ten years, and I have been a preceptor for students and novice x-ray technologists at Northwestern Medicine for 8 years. I enjoy doing that, and I have always felt that I had a teacher's mentality. I currently love my position and role in the department I work for as an x-ray technologist, but in the future I want to pursue two positions. First, an adult educator at my current employer’s academy (Northwestern Medicine). They have a radiography program and I would like to teach there and prepare radiography students for the field of radiology. Second, I would like to teach at a community college seeing that I went to a community college, and I want to help kids in the community college setting to reach their goals. I want to give back where I came from, for both the community college setting and Northwestern Medicine gave me an opportunity and I would not be where I am today if it was not for these two institutions.
I am on my ninth course out of ten in completing the MAED program at Michigan State University, and I have enjoyed every course. Looking back at my goals, first I am going to complete the program within five years. Secondly, I still have the intent to teach in a radiography program and a community college; However, after taking a training & professional development course I want to look into becoming an education coordinator for our department. I feel my communication skills have improved especially as a listener and an observer. I have collected an understanding that communication is not just about speaking, but listening, looking, and body language. Overall with these skills I hope to become an efficient educator and leader for the organization I currently work.