A Love of Learning = The Key to Unlocking Increased Potential?

It was a sunny day and I was at the beach with some friends who asked me what I wanted to do after college. Part of my response included saying I didn't have any great desire to climb a corporate ladder or anything.

Thinking back even further, I remember a late afternoon in my dorm room trying to select classes I would take for the next semester. I felt frustrated by how many classes were required versus how many classes looked interesting to me. I remember getting lost in my thoughts, brainstorming how a college education could be redesigned that would allow for more electives. I would have loved to have taken a photography course, something in the music department, and more history courses. Instead it was a challenge to fit in the requirements for my major and minor. I did manage to fit in several physical education electives such as: aerobics, the ropes course, and first aid and CPR. These courses generally didn't require a lot of time and only offered 1 or 2 credit hours, but it was something that afforded me a bit of recreation.

Deciding on a major when I started college didn't cause me too much stress. Accounting appealed to me because it involved working with and analyzing numbers; keeping track of transactions and identifying trends. I also thought that accounting was the language of business. If I learned accounting - that would give me an entry point into different types of businesses.

All of this points to the fact that a lot of things interest me and there is not enough time to explore all of them! But this is part of what makes me unique and this uniqueness has been reflected in my career path thus far.

I landed an internship with a big accounting firm during my last semester of college. I raised financial support to work with overseas missions for nearly a decade after I finished graduate school. I gained experience in fundraising, public speaking, learning another language, working with university students, writing Bible studies, and working with a seminary. Afterwards, I worked with international students in the USA for a bit. Then I started my own small bookkeeping/income tax preparation business which through some interesting twists led me to working with a non-profit focused on leprosy and other related diseases. From there, I had the opportunity to work briefly with an insurance company. I remember the company enrolled me in coursework to learn more about life and health insurance. But the clock to complete this coursework started ticking prior to my first day at this insurance company. And I still managed to complete the coursework on time! Now, I'm in a period of actively waiting to see what will happen next - what doors might open?

I'm part of that generation that no longer stays with one company the entirety of their working life. But I'm hoping that my love of learning and that so many things do genuinely interest me will serve me well as we continue to navigate a global pandemic.

Recently I have become interested in learning more about human resources. I've been responsible for a few duties that touch on human resources in prior roles. Who knows if this interest will lead anywhere? My professors in business school always told me that the best time to go back to school or learn new skills was during a recession. The emerging economy will need workers with newer skill sets.

As we continue to learn what living in a time of a global pandemic means and will mean for the future, I hope that the area of workers' rights doesn't go backwards. While a lot of people experienced life slowing down a lot due to stay-at-home orders and decreased work, there were also a lot of essential workers who found their workloads growing, with them working more hours due to working at home. I think the area of human resources will continue to be challenged now and in the future. Will flexible hours, work from home options, become expected benefits? How would that be monitored or enforced? Perhaps my professors in school were right, learning new skills during a recession is a wise move. Thankfully, that could mean mini-courses online; it doesn't have to mean a whole new degree.

The picture of a book is meant to symbolize my love of learning. I read a lot!