Collegial Experience

Being a part of a caring, collaborative learning community while promoting my professional growth and development has been encouraging, informative and enlightening to me as an individual.  While on this professional journey there have been many times when I have felt that I had bitten off more than I could chew.  My peers and my professors have always been right there to offer words of wisdom, comfort and motivation to ensure me that if I step back for a moment I will see that I had made the right choice in pursuing my Masters and that I did have the ability to handle the situation.  This last class my health has not been good. I have been in the hospital and had to start taking medication daily just to stay safe.  Although the stress of the whole situation has been overloading, when I shared my situation with the professor and my advising team they were all willing to assist me and to ensure me that everything would be okay.  Sometimes we all need to be encouraged and uplifted, and as a professional there will be times when it is our job to make others feel encouraged.

Another great aspect of this collaberative learning community is that we all come from different social, economic and cultural backgrounds so we have a lot of insight to offer one another.  We also have different professional backgrounds that allows us to provide one another with information that we may not be privelaged to have otherwise.  In this class in particular, Debra was very informative about the Head Start system and offered us a lot of insight into the practices and routines of the center she was familiar with.  It is great to hear from someone who works in these systems daily and can share freely their opinion about matters.

Finally, the whole experience has been enlightening. The perspectives of others, the backgrounds of the professors, resources that we were introduced to, it all comes together to provide us with professional connections, information and resources to take with us as we proceed on our journey.

A goal that I have for using my collegial experience to enhance my system development and advocacy work on behalf of young children, families, and the early childhood community is that I intend to become employed in an agency where I can make an impact on the lives of children. I would also like to find a local advocacy group that I could become involved in so that I can begin to utilize all that I have learned on my collegial journey, I hope to make contact with some local agencies this summer when I have completed my course work and I am on vacation from my current profession.

I have truly enjoyed working with and meeting all of my peers and the professors that I have been fortunate to have during this time.

Until we meet again,
Jennifer