After spending two years in the corporate headquarters for a major retailer, it became clear that I needed to make efforts to set myself apart from all of the other hard-working people in our office. I decided to evaluate my options to continue my education. I determined that in order to take control of the direction my career was going, I would need to take it to the next step and work towards earning another degree.My employer was very receptive of self-advancement and encouraged me to start taking classes at a community center. I started out taking miscellaneous classes that specifically applied to the position I was currently in. Af ...view middle of the document...
I had always been a good student and even graduated two years early with my bachelors degree but, I felt like I needed to do more.Every night I would go home after a long days work and wonder if that is the same type of position that I would have in ten or twenty years. I would look around my office and interact with people of all educational levels. Some of the hardest working people in our company have no formal education but have done considerably well in all career respects. It has become increasingly clear that if a person has enough drive, they have the ability to get to a supervisor or even a manager level position. But what assurance does one have that they will be one of the 'chosen' individuals that the company decides to promote?After much discussion with my own supervisor, I went and sought consultation from our departmental director. At twenty-nine, he is the youngest person to become a director at our company. I inquired about what he thought the key points to his success were and what he thought I could do to model my career after his. His advice was simple and to the point; go back to school to pursue a Masters degree and keep working hard. It turned out that he had just finished up his MBA a few months after I started working there.Although earning a degree does not guarantee any success in the workforce, it is a tool that one can use to leverage themselves into a better position. I am pursuing a masters degree for two primary reasons: career development, and personal growth.
