Past Present and Future Essay Example for Free

Past Present and Future Essay The University of Phoenix program has enhanced my personal, educational and professional growth and has changed my life for the good. Introduction This essay reflects on my personal, educational and professional growth through the program of study that I had taken at the University of Phoenix. it discusses my past my present and my future life that has changed positively due to the degree that I received at the University and throws light on the benefits that I have received through this program and how it has helped me achieve my goals and ambitions. A) Part One: Reflect upon where you were in your personal and professional life when you started the University of Phoenix program. When I started at the University of Phoenix I was a mother of two which is the most challenging and demanding job and along with that I was working two jobs. I was working as a hospital manager looking over the entire clerical staff at a hospital for over14 years and was recently promoted to a higher position due to my knowledge and experience. I believe my hard work and dedication to my work that has paid off. I believe in one thing with great conviction that dreams only come true for people who truly believe in them. I believe if you dream of something and truly follow it, you can surely achieve it. I have faith in this because I believed and followed my dreams and was able to achieve them, so you should ever give up and try as much as you can, as many times as you can cause one day your wishes will come true. 1) How did you feel about the role of learning and its importance to your personal growth and development? For any individual to succeed in this competitive world, education is a must and the more and more you learn, the better it is for you and your career. I realized that my field, that is management, is an evolving field with more and more research being done in it and newer methods and evaluations being carried out to help make your management skills better; therefore I decided to join the program at The University of Phoenix. I wanted to gain more knowledge so that I can inculcate my knowledge in my personality and be able to excel in my field by being able to help my work place and the people I work with, which require great interpersonal skills. 2) What was your level of professional competence in problem solving, written and oral communication skills, information retrieval and utilization, and collaboration? My knowledge and experience was good enough for me to handle two jobs and that too in the management area. I think these skills are quite necessary to survive at your workplace, whether you are at the management level or just an employee who is lower in the hierarchy. I think problem solving, written and oral communication is very important when you are working with a lot of people and I believe   my skills were good enough as I have survived in my jobs for fourteen years now and I believe I’m a people person. I believe I am someone who can make people work together and be able to utilize resources be it human or other to their best and can retrieve any kind of information, whenever needed, from anyone. It was never a much of a problem for me. 3) What were your career goals? â€Å"There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning.† Christopher Morley My career goals have always been the same, to excel and go higher up the management hierarchy and be able to go and work on higher levels of management. To achieve this I wanted to learn and educate myself even more because I believe it is very important for people, to be able to compete with other people, and beat the competition. My career goals are full of determination and passion for success. I believe if you have set career goals you can achieve them because you carry them out with conviction. My career goal is to higher and higher the management ladder and I’m determined to do so. B) Part Two: Evaluate the growth you experienced during your University of Phoenix program of study. Evaluate how your courses and experiences in your University of Phoenix program have contributed to your growth, problem solving, written and oral communication skills, information retrieval and utilization, and collaboration. The courses that I took were quite informative and interesting and I think they were truly adding to my knowledge about my field. I think that they were good for developing both knowledge and skills. I think that my basic skills such as written and oral communication skills have improved a lot with the increase interaction with my peers and the kind of learning subjects these were. My experience in the University and especially, the people who are a part of it, really helped build up my interpersonal skills. I am better able to understand how to be around people and how to manage the people around, how important it is to please and be pleased at the same time. I believe that buy taking these courses, I have increased my skills and I have developed an ability to complete all the work that I have been given and to be able to finish all tasks on time. I have learned better management skills and have become more efficient with the aspect of management. I was able to complete all subjects and I am certain that each subject had added something to my knowledge and experience. 2) Identify the two general education courses and the two core courses taken during your program of study that had the greatest impact on your current or potential employment. Explain why you selected these courses and how they have impacted your personal and/or work life positively. Be specific.   The two general courses during my program of studies that really added something to my knowledge and, were the subjects I believed that had the greatest impact on my current field of employment were Res 320 and Math courses. the reason why these I felt were important was because I believed they enhanced my ability to complete my budgets and maintain costs in the organization I was working in. it increased my knowledge about cost maintenance and helped me find ways to reduce man hours and how to comply with this reduction.   These factors are very important in the field of management and I felt that these two general courses added the most to these areas of management. The two Core Courses that I feel have had the most impact on my current of future employment prospects are Culture Diversity and Fundamentals of Management. These two subjects have enabled me to build over the experience and knowledge I already had. It allowed me to further strengthen certain points of my prior knowledge or helped me eradicate or alter certain perceptions or believes I had that were hampering my prospects of growing in the field. These subjects allowed me understand that different people have different perspectives and in order to succeed you need to accept and respects this diversity of ideas and thoughts. it enhanced my critical thinking and reasoning skills and also strengthen my ability to take sound and clear decisions, be assertive and positive when making important decisions. Over all the entire program has helped me gain more experience and expertise, however, these courses have added the most   to my knowledge and have bettered my potential to succeed and go higher in my field. 3) Recommend any changes or accommodations that would have enhanced or improved your University of Phoenix experience. Explain how your recommendations will enhance or improve the program for future students. Although my experience overall was quite interesting and rewarding I believe that if certain things such as   the team concept existed the learning environment could have been better and teamwork would have been able to increase our knowledge and practical experience a bit more. I am the sort of person who enjoys working in teams as it helps gain a better understanding of the actual situation. I also believe that working in groups or teams enables people to be more tolerant towards one another and helps them be patient and respectful towards others, this way they also enhance their management skills. Although there was collaborative work, I just wished that there would be more accountability according to the team members. I just wished that some team members would be held more accountable for not completing their work on time and responsibilities were evenly spread. Other than that I think there was nothing that I thought was missing with the program. With the team members being he ld more accountable for their actions and responsibilities, the program would have been better in terms of people management. C) Part Three: Analyze the impact of completing the University of Phoenix bachelors program on your current and future professional goals? After completing the program, I was promoted to a higher paying position, and was able to make way for me to go up the hierarchical ladder. The program helped me gain more knowledge and experience, which is what I needed to get a break through. 1) Now that you have completed your program of study, how do you feel about the role of lifelong learning and its importance to your personal growth and development? After completing this program I feel excellent and extremely satisfied. This program of study has given me the break that I deserved and has changed my life positively.   It has allowed me to fulfill my dream to go higher in my field. I have been promoted to the post of Director over a hospital and I was promoted because of the knowledge and experience that I gained during this program at the University. Now I hope to mentor other students and professionals and I wish to go back to school and give to others and impart all the knowledge that I have so that I can help other people struggling to achieve their dreams and giving them a chance and a way to fulfill them. What are your personal, professional, and educational goals for the next five years? My Educational goal is to obtain my Master Degree after my Bachelors and my professional goal is to teach at University of Phoenix. At personal level my goal is to basically coach and mentor others in achieving their management degree so that they can get the experience that I got with my degree and they too can become whatever they want in their field and get the right knowledge and guidance that one needs for applying to such programs. a) What programs will you attend? I would like to attend Toastmaster, so that I can become a better speaker. b) What skills or competencies will you continue to develop? I would like to develop my communication skills and management skills because these are the two most important skills in the field of management and I need these skills sharp and effective in order to stay on top. c) What professional organization(s) have you or will you join? I would like to work for the Southern Institute and to assist them with their billing system for the hospital industries to make the hospital billing more effective. d) What conferences or workshops will you attend? I will attend the Collection seminars to mentor and coach my staff on collecting copy and deductibles from patients prior to services at a hospital. e) What additional degrees might you pursue? Like I mentioned, I would like to pursue my education and maybe get a Masters degree in management or a Doctorate. This is all to increase my experience and sharpen my skills to achieve greater heights in my field. Conclusion I believe that everyone who dreams big should follow them and should get the right direction and the make the right decision so that they able to materialize what they envision and are able to succeed in life. I was able to achieve my goals and dreams by getting the degree at the University of Phoenix and I believe that if you dream it with conviction, you can achieve anything.