Who?
My name is Lecia Renee (Shepherd) Floyd and I am a 31 year old college student, wife and mother of two. I am bi-racial (my mother is black and my father is white). I guess you could say I am in the lower-middle class (as far down on the middle class as you can go, just barely touching the low). I came back to school at the age of 27 and now at almost 32 years old, I am definitely a different person than I was. When I came back to school, I wanted to go in to Social Work and become a family life counselor/educator and safe the world and all the people in it. After getting rejected by the school of social work for admission, I decided I no longer wanted to safe the world... I needed to work on finding me and saving myself. I spent one year in the music technology program and it was so unorganized... I quickly realized that I didn't have to have a music degree to continue my love for music, so I switched to the school of informatics and I really have enjoyed it. With each class I take and learn about different types of technology and things available, I get more excited. I still feel like I'm way behind other people, but something I have learned in this class is not to compare myself to other people. Everyone's journey's, experiences and skills are different and good in their own ways! I want to continue working on finding out who I really am, because without knowing who I am, how can I do things for others? I don't want to lose myself in others, but I have to find myself first. When I graduate, I want to get in to project management. For some odd reason, I enjoy the stress of having way too many things to do at one time, so I think PM is the way to go for me. Also, something I learned/admitted to myself this semester is that I am a perfectionist, so that will be a good field for me.
Why?
I am in this class because I heard it was a very interesting class and I wanted to check it out for myself. I heard that you never know what exactly you might see, hear or learn. I had a few other friends that took the class and they all seemed to enjoy it. The reason why I am still here is because on day one of the class, I knew that this was going to be the class that opened my eyes to see things in a different way. I have learned about myself, my strengths, my weakness and the biggest thing I learned is that it's ok to be wrong or to "fail". I've learned that it's not always about the outcome, but moreso what did you learn on the journey? As stated before, I came to the MAS program from the BSMT program. The thing that keeps me here is the variety. There's never a dull moment and I am loving soaking up all the information I am learning.
What?
This college journey is definitely not what I expected when I first came back, but I have enjoyed the journey and rolling with the punches. With that being said, although I have enjoyed the journey... I'm ready to graduate and start my next journey. The limitiations I have experienced during this journey is not being as tech savvy as the younger generation that grew up in this technology world. Also, I am not your average college student because I am older and I do have kids. I am very active in my kids school and with my kids and sometimes that takes my focus off of my school and on to them. I will miss one of my classes to be at something important to them because I feel it's not their fault I am in school so they shouldn't have to suffer. Because of my academic experience, I have been able to receive an internship and given pretty much the chance to do with it as I feel beneficial. I can be creative and do things for this internship, and she thinks it's all great. I am also getting the experience doing project management work with this internship. I would say that all of my limitiations are self-imposed. I chose to have children and not go back to college until after starting my family. As far as my tech limits, that was originally out of my control because of lack of resources when I was younger, but now there are so many tutorials out there, that there really are no excuses for me to be behind everyone.
How?
In the perfect world of MAS... there were be more than one Beth Lykins. Beth is a very real person who keeps things real with students and helps them. I would almost much rather go to Beth than to an advisor. An advisor is going to advise as to what the university wants, but Beth put things in a more real world perspective. The MAS program is good, but could need some help. They need to offer more sound classes. If you are going to offer an audio concentration, then you should offer more than 3 audio classes (and there are none offered on the graduate level). OR... if they aren't going to offer more sound classes, and someone choses the sound path, then they should make it less credit hours to graduate. Right now, I have one sound class left to take then I'm done with my concentration, but I am having to scrounge to find classes to take (just to take) because I need a certain number of credit hours. It almost seems like a waste of money because there aren't a large variety of classes to take. The last thing would be to educate the advisors better. Some are good, but one advisor seems almost as clueless as I was... not a good combo. So here's the things I would recommend to make a more successful program:
Translate!
I think this project will help me in other areas of school, life and job. Most of the time, we don't take the time to sit down and truly analyze something... see what it is, why it is and how it could be different. This has been a really good exercise that I will definitely use again!
Why?
I am in this class because I heard it was a very interesting class and I wanted to check it out for myself. I heard that you never know what exactly you might see, hear or learn. I had a few other friends that took the class and they all seemed to enjoy it. The reason why I am still here is because on day one of the class, I knew that this was going to be the class that opened my eyes to see things in a different way. I have learned about myself, my strengths, my weakness and the biggest thing I learned is that it's ok to be wrong or to "fail". I've learned that it's not always about the outcome, but moreso what did you learn on the journey? As stated before, I came to the MAS program from the BSMT program. The thing that keeps me here is the variety. There's never a dull moment and I am loving soaking up all the information I am learning.
What?
This college journey is definitely not what I expected when I first came back, but I have enjoyed the journey and rolling with the punches. With that being said, although I have enjoyed the journey... I'm ready to graduate and start my next journey. The limitiations I have experienced during this journey is not being as tech savvy as the younger generation that grew up in this technology world. Also, I am not your average college student because I am older and I do have kids. I am very active in my kids school and with my kids and sometimes that takes my focus off of my school and on to them. I will miss one of my classes to be at something important to them because I feel it's not their fault I am in school so they shouldn't have to suffer. Because of my academic experience, I have been able to receive an internship and given pretty much the chance to do with it as I feel beneficial. I can be creative and do things for this internship, and she thinks it's all great. I am also getting the experience doing project management work with this internship. I would say that all of my limitiations are self-imposed. I chose to have children and not go back to college until after starting my family. As far as my tech limits, that was originally out of my control because of lack of resources when I was younger, but now there are so many tutorials out there, that there really are no excuses for me to be behind everyone.
How?
In the perfect world of MAS... there were be more than one Beth Lykins. Beth is a very real person who keeps things real with students and helps them. I would almost much rather go to Beth than to an advisor. An advisor is going to advise as to what the university wants, but Beth put things in a more real world perspective. The MAS program is good, but could need some help. They need to offer more sound classes. If you are going to offer an audio concentration, then you should offer more than 3 audio classes (and there are none offered on the graduate level). OR... if they aren't going to offer more sound classes, and someone choses the sound path, then they should make it less credit hours to graduate. Right now, I have one sound class left to take then I'm done with my concentration, but I am having to scrounge to find classes to take (just to take) because I need a certain number of credit hours. It almost seems like a waste of money because there aren't a large variety of classes to take. The last thing would be to educate the advisors better. Some are good, but one advisor seems almost as clueless as I was... not a good combo. So here's the things I would recommend to make a more successful program:
- Offer more audio classes for those interested in audio
- Lower the amount of credit hours needed to graduate
- Educate the advisors better on classes offered.
Translate!
I think this project will help me in other areas of school, life and job. Most of the time, we don't take the time to sit down and truly analyze something... see what it is, why it is and how it could be different. This has been a really good exercise that I will definitely use again!