How My College Degree Helped Me to Achieve My Goals

I graduated from Rio Hondo Community College in Whittier, California in 1984. I needed the AA for my GED. My major was Fine Art. I transferred to Cal State Fullerton to pursue a BFA degree in Drawing and Painting and Printmaking with the intention of teaching at the community college level.

I had to drop out of school in 1986 when I developed a high risk pregnancy. I had our son the next year and we moved to Florida.

In 1995, when our son was in school, I went back to school at USF with a major in Art History with the intent of pursuing an MA after acquiring the BA. My adviser had told me that Art History would be a better degree for teaching, plus this school was more slanted toward the art history than the art studio major.

Our son became an educationally high risk student and I was advised to spend more time with him. To do that meant that I would need to drop out of school again, which I did in 1996. The situation didn't improve since the problem was with most of the teachers he was given. So I ended up homeschooling him from fourth grade to highschool graduation.

Our son has been on his own since 2006. I'm now in the process of reentering school again, to finish up my BA, if I can, this time in Liberal Studies at St Leo University in San Antonio, Florida.

I'm applying for their online school since their campus is too far from us and I need the schedule flexibility so I can work the classes around the mission trips and my writing.

I don't need the art degree anymore. So I'm pursuing other classes that will help to enhance what I'm doing out in the field as well as completing my BA at the same time without completely starting over.

My original goals for pursuing a college degree were to acquire my GED since I wasn't able to graduate from highschool due to a back injury, to gain a better understanding of who I was as a person and as an artist, to possibly teach studio art or art history at the community college level and to see how this would fit in with my calling to the mission field.

I received my GED by taking an extra Political Science class, since that was all I was missing from high school. It was one of the most important things I could have done. The teacher was a truly inspired, gifted and informed instructor of US government.

His teaching helped to equip me for what I would encounter through the years that I've been going into Europe on mission trips, since nearly every European I've met has insisted on a detailed explanation of our political system and why we do what we do before I could even get near talking to them about why I was there. This class has also helped me to understand what has been going on with our political scene since 2000.

My studio art classes, especially, taught me about my perspective on life and has helped me a great deal when I'm out in the field working. It has helped me to know how I think and how I see things. It has also helped me in my confidence in my own ability as an artist since I come from a highly competitive family of artists who all consider themselves to be better than I am. The discipline has helped me to know that I am capable of doing whatever I want to in expressing myself artistically.

I make pieces of varying media and give them away to those whom I know or have met. They are a part of what I do in my mission jobs to help encourage others.

I finally found a wonderful community of artists in a local art guild and will be going to the next level by showing my work in their shows in the next year. They also encourage their members to take advantage of community display and demonstration opportunities. This is the kind of opportunity that fits where I'm at. It's a low pressure situation that won't interfere with my major focus on the trips and my writing.

Changing my major to Art History was one of the most useful things I could have done for my chosen field. Art History covers all the major and not so major players in the world at the time of the creation of certain art pieces or of the times of certain artists.

It covers the contemporary history of the regions of the world that are and were the movers and shakers in the art world, which isn't necessarily the same as geo-political movers and shakers.

Due to that specialised information, I know more about the low countries or Benelux countries, which are Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg than a standard American non-art history education. That has constantly been a very helpful tool in my work in, especially since I've been going into Belgium, every year, since 2000.

This education has helped to open doors where I've been able to help encourage individuals that they can do what they've been called to do.

It's quite apparent that I didn't end up teaching in a community college classroom. However, I'm traveling around the world teaching in a variety of venues utilizing the education that I have so far received. It was definitely not a waste and has helped to equip me to do what I'm doing.

One very ironic thing about the twist that my life has gone in is that for years, I have walked past all of the major historical artistic destinations without ever going in and viewing the art within until last year. As a part of one of my jobs I had the opportunity to see my first authentic Michelangelo sculpture in Brugge.

While in school, I had fully expected to take a yearly trip to Europe to view and photograph all of the different art pieces that I taught on. Instead I have been going to Europe at least yearly and walking right past those destinations and chuckling under my breath over the irony of the situation.

The true irony is that I'm working in the precise country that I'd planned to visit as an art tourist, since a lot of my favorite artists came from this area, but not in that capacity. I like this turn of events a lot more than what I had expected of my life.

So, to answer the question, did I fulfill the original goals of my pursuit of my degree in the way I had envisioned it being done. No, I didn't. However I did fulfill those goals by an unexpected route and far beyond my wildest dreams.

Considering the way situations have unfolded on this planet since 2008, I would suggest that anyone who is pursuing a degree, to be flexible in their expectations of where they will be using that degree. That willingness to be flexible will open a lot more doors of opportunity to use what you're learning in your studies.

There's an old adage and advice in the jewelry business, which my husband grew up in. Buy what you like. Don't buy just for investment, you could end up eating it. That's the same case for your education. Study what you enjoy, not just to get a job that you may end up not being thrilled with or finding not to be as available as expected. Then, your education won't be a waste and you will always find a use for it no matter how unexpected that may be.

Additional Reading:

What's the Difference Between a Community College and a Vocational College?

How to Find a Good Preschool

Sources:

http://www.riohondo.edu/

http://www.fullerton.edu/

http://www.usf.edu/index.asp

http://www.saintleo.edu/

http://www.saintleo.com/

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Belgium/Provincie_West_Vlaanderen/Brugge-357609/Off_the_Beaten_Path-Brugge-Statues_Murals_Memorials-BR-1.html

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Benelux

http://www.visitbelgium.com/

http://www.visitflanders.us/

http://www.holland.com/global/

http://www.visitluxembourg.com/

http://www.italiantourism.com/

http://us.franceguide.com/

http://www.visitbritain.us/