Past, Present, Future free essay sample

Prior to attending the University of Phoenix I had attended Oral Roberts University, majoring in Management Information Systems, for three years. My studies at Oral Roberts were cut short by a combination of two factors; a lack of finances to continue and a general boredom in the traditional educational setting. I am a self-educator. I can take a subject I really enjoy, study and research it to the point were I am very well versed in it, and then remember the facts and figures that make it relevant in our world today. I have always been fascinated with the military leaders of our country with a particular fascination surrounding the military genius that led to our victories in World War II. I have been reading biographies, and autobiographies, of leaders and politicians since I was in high school. My love for this era has led me to read from all viewpoints, so that I can be truly educated. We will write a custom essay sample on Past, Present, Future or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The most challenging thing I have read was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. I came to the realization that I was only study this era in world history from one perspective. To truly understand it I needed another perspective to balance my understanding and complete my education. My level of professional competence and problem solving at this time was fairly decent. I had worked in a technically challenging environment, as a telephony systems engineer, and was successful in it. My written and oral communications skills were not as well defined, as they should have been, which made me uncomfortable whenever I had to give a presentation or write a report. The technical writing I did was excellent, because I could take a complex issue and present it in a way that nyone could understand it – I just couldn’t write the reports. I have always been able to understand what I was reading and how it related to the big picture. This has helped me to be able learn the programming and operational differences to more then ten different phone systems and peripherals (i. e. voice mail systems, call accounting software packages, and IVR systems). Prior to at tending the University of Phoenix I had never really worked in a team environment to solve problems so I felt that my collaboration skills were adequate. At this time in my life I was not really sure what my career goals were. I was going doing very well in my chosen career field. I made the decision to go back to school based on the fact that I really wanted to finish and get a degree, and I knew if I ever wanted to get into management I had to have a college degree. The decision to go back to school was made easier my employers offer to pay for it. Present The course work at the University of Phoenix has strengthened my problem solving skills by teaching my techniques to think critically about a problem and its possible solutions. One thing I have learned is that in the brainstorming process it is good to jot down all ideas, because often the solution will be in a derivative of an off the wall scenario that would not even be considered because it is to far out in left field. I have learned that the solution to most problems is not the first thing that comes to your mind when you are thinking about the problem, but if you evaluate all the possibilities you will always find a solution. The course work has really taught me the value of teamwork and creating good team dynamics in order to solve a problem. I have learned to listen to input from all my team members, and to not let my personal prejudices cloud my judgments. My written work has gotten better and I have sharpened some of my information retrieval and utilization skills. The two general education courses taken during my course of study that have had the greatest impact on my current and potential employment are Skills for Professional Development and Critical Thinking and Computer Logic. I chose these courses because that helped to develop skills and tactics that will help me to be a better employee to future employers as well helped me develop personally as well. I chose the Skills for Professional Learning class because it taught the concepts of team learning and team problem solving. The most important thing that I learned in this course is what is referred to as the 4P Meeting Management Model by the authors of the book Tools for Teams. This model teaches that a successful team meeting consists of a defined purpose, the right participants, a plan and a defined process. I chose the Critical Thinking class because it was the first class I ever had that really defined and elaborated on what critical thinking is. Critical thinking is the subconscious process that we go through to solve problems, we can however teach ourselves to be better critical thinkers. In Keys to Success the authors basically say that critical thinking deals with â€Å"asking questions, considering without judgment as many response as you can, and choosing responses that are as complete and accurate as possible†. The two core courses that I have taken that I think will help me the most in my future employment are the Web Programming courses. The two courses, Web Programming 1 and 2, taught skills that are need in the business world today. With more and more businesses transitioning to web based applications I feel that knowledge in how these applications function and are developed will be beneficial in the future. The only change I would like to see is an updating to some of the classes, otherwise the program was a good fit for me. The materials being used are outdated in a few of the classes. Information Technology is an ever-evolving field and as such the curriculum needs to be updated almost on a yearly basis. A good example of this is that the University of Phoenix is teaching C in its first programming classes. C++ would be a much better language to be teaching since it is used more frequently now then C. Future Now that I have completed this chapter of my life and am about to receive my degree, after 19 years, I feel that learning is something I will do until I die. I am always looking to learn new things and increase my knowledge base. I have learned to reflect on the past because it is what shapes our future. My personal growth and development will continue as long as I have this thirst for knowledge. At this time I don’t have any short-term future educational goals. I have always felt that it would like to one day get my Masters degree in History, with a concentration on 20th Century US History. My ultimate goal would be to be able to teach a collegiate level course on the technological history of the 20th Century. I think it would be fun to teach a course that takes us from a society that is dominated by the local community to the global society we live in today. In my professional life I hope that achieving this degree will help me to progress from being a worker bee to make the transition to management.