The last couple of months, I have been the queen of vague tweets. My Twitter account went into lockdown in February. Now it’s come to the point where I’m comfortable talking about what’s going on in my life.
1. I had been doing some soul searching about what I want to do with my career. While I’m good at what I do, the next logical step career wise is no longer where I want to go. So looking at what I like to do, it kept coming back to project management functions. I had a discussion with my boss about this and right before Christmas I was approved to take courses towards Certified Associate in Project Management. The actual processing of my application took a lot longer, so in the meantime I earned the equivalent to a Six Sigma Yellow Belt. I started taking the project management courses in April, but had to put them on hold for a few weeks while the busy season at work started.
2. February I was asked to interview for a leadership program. My first thought was are they sure they have the right person? I ultimately was not selected to participate in that program, but it was a great experience interviewing and meeting people who I would not have had the chance to previously. Then in March another leadership program was announced which would be a little less intensive and more geared towards what I want to do with my career. I was accepted to participate in this program and was told that I was one of the top candidates that interviewed. This is a one year program that starts in June.
3. Then I got the crazy idea may be it’s time for me to go back to school. My undergraduate degree has absolutely nothing to do with anything remotely related to what I do now. I feel kind of odd telling people what it is in, especially in job interviews. Now choosing a school was quite easy since my husband works for a college that has an online MBA and as his spouse, I’m eligible for his tuition discount. A very generous tuition discount because he has been employed there for a good amount of time. I still had to apply and be accepted which I officially found out I was last week. I start my first class the end of next month. It’s a pass/fail preparatory course that I technically do not need since I already met the statistics requirement, but since I haven’t been in school for 14 years and have never take an online course, I thought it was a good idea. I will also not be taking any financial aid to go back to school. Between my husband’s discount and my employer’s tuition reimbursement program, the final tuition cost per class is ridiculous. I still will have to buy or most likely rent textbooks, but I refuse to go into debt for this.
4. A few weeks ago an employee in my division left and his position is exactly where I would want to go next with my career. It’s project management based, but it also has some web based responsibility. Now all my web experience is self learned minus a HTML class I took in college. Now I got a sneak peek at how this website is updated and this position is not for hard code programming, but updating via a database. Something I could easily handle. Last week I had a scheduled phone conversation with the employee who handles a similar system to discuss my application for the open position. Now I’m waiting for the hiring manager to schedule some time to meet with me. Did I mention this is our busy season? So my tweet on Thursday was a little premature, but I have a good feeling.
So in a nutshell, that is what has been going on with my life. My professional life at least. Will there still be vague tweets? Most likely. But now you know what has been driving them.
