Leadership & Development
- Where I've Been
- Where I am Now
- Where I'm Going
- Recommended Readings
Involvement Experiences
- Leadership Roles
- Academic Courses
- Out-of-Class Learning
- Work Experiences
The future of my life is unwritten, but full of endless opportunities. Two main steps need to be taken in the future to prepare myself for the life to come, personal and professional development.
Personally, I need to begin searching for my new social networks at grad school and building those lasting ties with the current social networks I have in Madison and throughout the country. In the upcoming year I need to work with my family to help them and myself through the time of my growing up and moving away from home, something that hasn't happened in my family yet, since I'm the oldest child. There will also be a need to adjust to a new environment and new surroundings, wherever my graduate education ends up.
Professionally I have a few needs. The first is to find my niche in grad school and think about where I want to end up post-grad school. I have had the idea of working in residence life for the rest of my career, but I also wouldn't mind exploring a more broader, campus level of involvement. Ideally I'll be able to find a school that would allow me to do both, without it being overwhelming, or perhaps at an institution where a strong collaborative relationship exists between residence life and campus.
The next professional need is a bit of a diversification of experiences. I've spent a lot of times in the general leadership development area and feel I need to branch a bit more to better be able to serve college students. I'm not sure how I want to go about accomplishing this; I think it'll be through some conversations with my future advisors. A big part of me is really looking forward to doing graduate research and writing a thesis on student development. I'm tossing the idea of either the ability and environment of e-learning or student involvement and its impact on overall development.
Together these personal and professional plans will amount to a great future, full of great challenges and even better successes and celebrations. My overall plan is to be in grad school this fall, continue on through my masters, then re-evaluate where I am personally and professionally. I would like to eventually get my PhD, but I may work a bit before pursuing that. In the end, I would like to be working with college students in a leadership development type setting; in the classroom, in the halls, on campus…somewhere where I have regular interaction with students and can watch them develop into professionals.