Hindsight is 20/20

One of the best decisions I made when looking to go back to school as an adult was to choose a University that clearly promoted the value of a Liberal Arts education. I must admit, that at first, I was much more concerned with simply completing my Bachelor's degree in the shortest time possible. Thankfully, my Faculty Advisor, and most of my Professors understood this need, but also were able to show me how to see beyond my immediate situation and helped me to stay on course, through what was to be for me a very challenging time professionally.

As a business major also committing to a full time work schedule, I was highly focused on my goals. Since many of my focus area electives were accepted as transfer credits the bulk of my coursework was in Liberal Arts classes which seemed to me to be largely irrelevent to making money.

How wrong I was! Without exception, I uncovered many blind-spots as I progressed through each of my courses and independent learning pursuits. Here is one example:

Course: Collaborative Learning:
Instructor: Paula Bartholome, MS Organizational Development

Far and away one of the most useful and best courses I have ever taken anywhere. It later occured to me that in only ten weeks, our class had been exposed to solutions for most of the answers to the thorniest business problems I've faced in nearly 15 years as a consultant. Through the course exercises I reflected on and came to closure with some past experiences and saw how in the future I could obtain more desirable results in under similar circumstances. In addition, not only were concepts and case studies analysed, but a simple framework for actualizing results was presented. When I practice what I've learned, my business relationships simply work better.

The required reading: "Process Consultation: Building Helping Relationships" By Edgar Schein is the cornerstone of the course. This book is jam packed with sound advice, written with the voice of experience.

I would characterize the instructor as no-nonsense. She knew the material and was effective at keeping the students on track and focused. This was no small task, since one objective of the course is to expose students to a somewhat unstructured and organic progessive elaboration of shared reality.

It should be noted that this course is required at DePaul's School for New Learning, in my opinion - with good reason!

As always, you are warmly invited to share your experiences and comments on this topic!

- David