Acquiring New Skills in this Program

I really enjoyed a discussion with Megan, the colleague I mentioned the other day who is in my Adult Learning and Adult Development class. Although she and I don't have similar paths, it was fun and intriguing to read about her journey and compare it to my own. What I really enjoyed was her final question of "have there been new skills that you have acquired in adulthood that you never thought were possible?" 

The PhD journey that I am on is one of those skills. Well, to be more precise, the skills I'm developing going through these PhD classes are providing me the opportunity to acquire skills and knowledge I never thought possible.

In our introductions the other night, I mentioned that I had been a contractor in construction and in refinery services. Other than being the Director of Training, I was also the Director of Career Development. This meant that I led the recruiting team in their efforts to replace our personnel each year. The refining industry goes through up and down cycles. During down cycles, many of the field workers leave their positions and go hunt, fish, take other jobs, or move around to follow other jobs. These are "project workers" who are looking for over-time and double-time rather than a long-term position with one company. We were an organization of 7000, with a 50% turnover rate. This meant we had to re-hire 3500 employees every year, especially to fulfill the needs of the clients for those peak work times. 

If anyone had asked me at that time what my career would include in the future it would have been more of the same. I really enjoyed the career development position. Meeting new employees and showing them the training that we offered as an organization. Getting to go out and train groups of employees and is the first person that they see to introduce them to the company, or hosting an advanced training course on equipment and helping old hands see their equipment in new ways. But by far the best part was getting to go with the recruiters to career fairs and hiring events. Being in interviews and helping convince people to become employees. What a rush!

Now not only do I get to find ways to make that training more substantial and valuable for the employee, but I also get that rush of interacting with field employees from thousands of organizations when I walk the halls of our building and discuss jobs, training, and learning with them. But the best aspect was that I never would have thought I would pursue a PhD. It took moving to a new position, a position with a non-profit training company, and my new boss to say "why don't you go get your PhD?" for me to have any thought or inclination to take classes to refine my understanding of adult learning and take my understanding of learning to the next level. 

In the last three months, I've given four presentations to different conferences and meetings discussing the experiments in VR and microlearning and other innovations we are using to make our learning more sticky. When I was a contractor I never would have thought that I would be in that position.