Personal Essay
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My main source of motivation for pursuing a degree course at Prescott College is the experience that I have gotten during my career as an engineer, chief architect, and program officer. I am interested in focusing on a Bachelor of Education degree and Mathematics will be my major. My ultimate desire is to lecture at a university.
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I have served with the military in Asia, Middle East, Europe, and the Americas for 15 years as a senior intelligence, planning leader, tactical operations specialist, and cryptologist. I have also worked during this duration as a radar and communications specialist. This working experience has given me an opportunity to understand the value of being determined in pursuit of goals while at the same time being independent-minded.
At Prescott College, I understand the nature of Bachelor of Arts programs offered, especially with regards to their being low-residency, self-designed courses. I believe that the ideas and perspectives that I have accumulated during my career have provided me with enough impetus to amass the strengths needed to pursue such a degree program.
The greatest help that I will need relates to orientation to the inherent nature of the program, the qualification requirements and the resources needed in order to get high marks. I am particularly interested in attaining a high grade in order to be able to pursue the education degree program at the master’s level. In this regard, I am keen to learn new things about a master’s program so that I can start to prepare in earnest for the academic challenges that lie ahead. The challenges I am more interested in are those that touch on the lecturing career.
Upon graduation, I would be glad to find a tutoring job that would orientate me into the world of lecturing. Armed with this tutoring experience, I hope to build on my strengths in order to become a better lecture upon completing education at the graduate level. I have also been owned two businesses in the past, something that has made me gain interest in the business as an academic field. I will, therefore, be keen to take a business minor both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
I know my life will change a great deal after graduation. What I am worried about is whether my approach to the profession I am embarking on will be compatible with today’s competitive world of academia. For this reason, I am always seeking new ways of broadening my world view and reconciling it with contemporary academic practices in order to remain competitive in this profession.
I believe my solid grounding in engineering and communications will enable me to gain composure at the entry point of mathematics lectures. I know I may be swayed towards giving engineering concepts considerable bias, something that might impede success rate. I believe the remaining years on my first degree will enable me to overcome influences from the field of engineering that are incompatible with my future professorial roles.
I believe I can play a constructive role in influencing today’s aspiring mathematicians to achieve great things by enabling them to excel in their careers. As Steen points out, today’s students need to be mentored in order to live and work an era dominated by world-wide communication, computers and a thriving global economy. I believe I can help students synthesize new ideas, perceive global patterns and contribute positively to the global economy. My experiences in different parts of the world have enabled me to accumulate first-hand information on the impact of globalization and the role that education plays in the development of a global economy.
In my career, I have come across strings of reports that cite serious deficiencies among U.S students in mathematical performance. A report by Krisch indicates that American students rank lowly by global standards as well as local expectations (33). I feel indebted with the task of teaching students about the way in which the modern workplace been mathematicized (as Paulos puts it) by technology and the role of mathematical sciences in business, technology, communication and public policy (53).
My interests in football and baseball, particularly in areas of coaching and training have been ideal pastime activities here at Prescott College. These activities, I believe, will make me thrive at the college until completion of my bachelors-level course since I always have something to do in order to break the monotony of studies. So far, going to Prescott College has been smooth and lovely. I hope it stays that way as I approach the completion of my Bachelor’s degree in readiness for a masters’ teaching program and ultimately, a lecturing career.
Works Cited
Kirsch, Irwin. Literacy Profiles of America’s Young Adults. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1986.
Paulos, John. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences. New York: Hill and Wang, 1988.
Steen, Lynn. “Teaching Mathematics for Tomorrow’s World”, Educational Leadership, 47.1 (1989): 18-22.
