At the Summit Seminar, a one day final requirement for graduation from DePaul University's school for New Learning, graduating students from Tampa to Vancouver met on campus in Chicago to share their experiences as adult learners, get a sense of closure, and obtain final undergraduate credits. During this time the students were segregated into three teams and each team produced a short presentation that reflected our experiences.
My team decided that each of us would address the rest of the graduating class, one by one, and communicate in a powerful way, how our collective and individual perspectives changed through the DePaul experience. Each of us addressed our fellow students and the faculty with three simple words which succinctly expressed our focus before, during, and after completing our undergraduate work at SNL. At the end of the day, I collected these thoughts in order to share them with you so that we can keep them in mind, and so that others can contribute:
Student Before SNL During SNL After SNL
Ruth M: Boredom Thriving Vision
Jaz M: Confused Growth Whole
Carsten G: Lost Fear Found
Kathleen K: Kids Desire Satisfaction
Nikki H: Tenative Experience Strength
Abas N: Fear Courage Excellence
Jean C: Tombstone Grandchildren Teaching
Michael K: Individual Analytical Wholeness
David F: Credentials Confidence Activism
Definitely Reply to this post if you'd like to share your DePaul experience in this way.
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3 comments:
Almost everyone I've talked to at SNL has had similar experiences with the bureacracy in the administration. Yet, if I read your post right, it's almost like overcoming some of these issues, while irritating at the time, made you stronger and better able to cope because they challenged you to not take no for an answer. is that right?
I can't make any excuses for the way that the program is run. In fact, I'm really not qualified to judge. I will say that by far the large majority of the faculty that I worked with were supportive and tried to be helpful in working out problems as they occured. I can also say that being forced to work hard to marshall university resources and painstaikingly document and articulate my concerns so that things got done without having access to power, promoted my growth - even though it was frustrating at times.
What I got out of it, is I learned to be a better advocate and especially how to work within a system to create positive change.
I think that many adult learners, have a kind of blindspot, in that they are perhaps too wise for their own good when it comes to new learning. That's probably why they say it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks! For me, it's all too easy to try to frame everything in terms of my own past experiences. This seems to have a stress lowering effect, but necessarily blocks new possibilites from emerging for me.
DePaul is a huge school. The process is intimidating because, like any system, it becomes more complex as it grows, and it's been growing for a long time.
I also suspect that the undergraduate process is purposely constraining in some ways in order to provide some resistance for the students to overcome. - crazy as it sounds - you won't get any stronger unless you work the muscles.
Thanks for sharing,
Polly Anna
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