An education

Ten years ago this week, I was on Christmas break, in the middle of my senior year at Mesa State College (Grand Junction, Colorado), visiting my family in South Dakota, and preparing to take the GMAT (a graduate admissions test for business students). The GMAT scores are valid for 5 years and though I didn't have any type of solid plan, I was sure that I would start graduate school sometime shortly after my college graduation.

Ten years later I finished a master's program--though my path to graduation was completely different than I had originally envisioned.

I did not go to business school. I did not get an MBA. I did not use my GMAT scores.

But, I did...
...live in Thailand (and received an education of a different sort).
...start an MBA program (but discovered I wanted a different experience from my undergrad--in business management--and left the program after one class).
...begin a career in higher education administration (and now have 7-1/2 years of experience at two different universities under my belt).

There were definitely times I wanted to quit and was so tired of writing research papers (especially during the early days in my program when I didn't have internet access at home!). But thanks to the support of friends and family, and my own desire to accomplish something, I FINISHED.

I tell people I'm done with school--that you won't see me in a doctoral program...but, who knows. Ten years from now I might have something different to say.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.