![Picture](/uploads/2/5/8/1/25814453/1430079879.png)
This last month (ok… going on two) I have dedicated more time to the completion of my Master’s Degree and less time strategizing on what to discuss on this blog page. In my own personal life, I just recently defended my Master’s Degree in Higher Education Administration and without a doubt have completed one of the most exciting moments in my life up to date. In that thesis I stress the importance of integrating the academic and social identities that college students go through into our practice as Higher Education Administrators. I examined leadership practice through the ideas of those whose passion and trust, in the ideas to better this world, inspired a movement. And in the final days of compiling my thesis portfolio, I was reminded by a wise mother of mine to be mindful of what that process means. This two-year journey, this defense, was about defending MY passion.
The work that I have researched and written about over the last two years have been examining certain populations of students, in the college realm, that, in my opinion, are often over looked or not discussed enough in terms of college and their development as students. As I prepare to close this chapter of my life, as a graduate student, I can’t help but think about what this experience has done for me as a graduate candidate in pursuit of a higher degree. What these discussions have meant, the words on the pages I have read, and ultimately the opinions I have formulated based on the text that was provided. It helps me question the various ideas I have for Higher Education, how I view student success, but even more importantly what is it that I am going to do to redefine what it means to be a young professional, in today’s society, with the ideas and degrees behind my name.
I would argue that we fail to have faith in what it is we are good at or excited about and we leave it up to society to determine what our success is… what our passion should be. While we may be good at something we may not always find fulfillment and that is ok. Life is about strategizing the strengths we can perform with an environment that supports our ideas on innovation. Our life is about developing a voice and instilling the passion we have onto others, arguably not through conversation, but through action as a direct demonstration to the various ways we can impact those around us. Life is too short to spend time arguing who is right or who is wrong but it should be utilized as a way to show others- passion, for the work that you do, is how we find success.
As an Administrator, within Higher Education, this is the success I want to see in my students. I don’t want students to believe that grades are everything and I don’t want students to believe that being overly involved is the only thing that is important in gaining success in college. What I want my students to believe, in leaving college, is to have a greater understanding of who they are in these various settings, a greater understanding of who they are in the classroom (i.e. how they learn, how they teach, how their ideas differ from their neighbor) intersected with who they are outside of the classroom is what defines them. The beauty of that definition is it is up to you to determine what that means. I don’t know where life will take me or what my career path will look like, but that passion I hold and the lens of education I have, will be integrated into my day-to-day practice. It is the passion that defines me.