Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Whoa intimidating!

I had supervision with my boss today, something I do pretty much every week. I've officially been a Unit Coordinator for a year past my 90-trial. Things are good, he's happy with my work, has nothing but good things to say about what I do and how I do it. I get recognition from the vice president that is his boss, and it quite frankly feels really good.

He asked me when I think about the next year, what are my goals. And I honestly didn't know. I've been very focused on the here and now, figuring a lot of things out. I'm in a long distance relationship, I want to finish my degree, lots of things. There's been a lot of grey area between my personal life and my work life in terms of attempting to move forward and what does that mean.

There are a lot of changes and restructuring going on at work right now. Oaklawn has recently acquired 200+ employees as part of taking over a portion of Madison Center. There are still a lot of kinks being worked out, decisions being made, teams being established. I'm not entirely sure what that means for my job or Oaklawn as a whole. Good things, I'm sure. I have no concern about losing my job in all of this. What I'm feeling now is my lack of degree. The position I currently have at Oaklawn is pretty much as far as I can go sans official college degree. I have continually appreciated the recognition that I have already received for the work that I do and those kinds of things, but it is painfully obvious to me that the lack of degree is seriously effecting (affecting? I can never keep those two straight) any potential upward movement in the company.

I struggle with how I want to go about completing my degree. Do I do a degree completion progam, at Goshen College for instance? It means 18 months of very intense classes going full-time to get a B.S. in Organizational Leadership, while working full-time, parenting children as a single mom, and still maintaining my relationship, all of these things very important to me. Do I look at going part-time to finish my B.A? I have 78 credit hours at this point. I'm essentially a science class and a writing class away from the credits I would need for an Associate's Degree from IUSB. And that would be an Associate's in Spanish. I don't think that allows for any advancement yet, so it's not a long term solution for what I'm wanting in terms of career. If I go part-time, which would mean no more than 9 credits per semester, if I need 130 credits to graduate, that's about 6 more semesters or three years, or some combination of summer classes and regular semesters, probably at least 2 years no matter which way it's broken down.

Or if I decide I want to switch my major from Spanish to Social Work or Psychology, how much more undergrad work would that require? So many questions with little in the way of answers. I never blog in search of answers or comments. I blog because I need to process through things in my brain and what is currently going on in my life. Here though, this time, I'm looking for thoughts and opinions. Sharing of experiences and things learned from them. I'm feeling at an impasse in many parts of my life and need some wisdom imparted from the people in my life, be you close by and talked to often, or far away and not kept in touch with enough. :)

Also, could potentially looking for alternative housing in the next 6 months, as I can't be a full-time student and live where I do. Needs to be affordable (duh), and at least 2 bedrooms, preferably 3.

Blah for blunt blogging, it's so much less pretty!

amor y paz,
me