One moment in office hours stands out. A freshman weighed her options for a major, and asked me “Should I go into business or medicine?” She could clearly succeed in whichever direction she chose. “I am so passionate about both. And look at this too, this is my Instagram for raising environmental awareness.”

The goal of teaching is not just to transfer information, but partnering with other learners so that we can critically analyze the information around us. The goal of teaching is empowering students to make effective decisions. The question that enabled my student to focus on a path of study was the question that clarified her root motivation. “Imagine there’s a health crisis. Would you be happier as the doctor applying the right tools and techniques to meet someone’s needs directly? Or would you be happier sharing the money needed to make sure victims received the right tools, techniques, and practitioner ?”

Over the years, I’ve created and delivered more communications and writing courses than I can remember. There’s nothing like seeing participants hit key growth milestones in thinking and communication skills like cultural empathy, critical analysis, and design thinking.

To enrich our universities onboarding curriculum, I ideated, designed and executed my department's first immersion driven curriculum for our university-wide onboarding communications course (2016-2018). The biggest challenge came with the transformation of legacy methods to multi-platform team learning. This challenge became the biggest opportunity: this innovation resulted in successful cross-departmental projects and tangible career growth. In piloting a new learning design, I also needed to source vendors and negotiate external bids, and re-optimize resources so that the project was delivered 50% under budget. Finally I deliver new process guidelines to enable scaling.

In addition to launching a learning model, I produced a guest speaker series (2015-2017). Here I sourced high-profile talent, and then captured more value by building interdepartmental engagement and facilitating social media marketing. To make the most out of the speaker events, I had developed an integrated curriculum that synthesized semester-long learning development sequences. After we enjoyed the last event, my department needed to be able to re-create the value; I collated the lessons learned and then provided related workshops on pedagogy, operational infrastructure and talent management.

Nothing feels quite like mastering a scrum until you teach a classroom full of freshman for a university-wide onboarding program. Beyond instruction and learning design, I enjoyed my years as a mentor to new teachers (2014 - 2016). Here I supported mentee development through curriculum review, co-teaching, sharing project designs, and 1-on-1 coaching sessions. Effective mentorship is well-documented, data-driven and makes the most out of infrastructure, so I also focused on ensuring our deliverables conformed to department guidelines and coordinated administrative engagement. Our mentoring program allowed me many of those little transcendent moments: the joy of realizing I’m just one facet contributing to growth much larger than myself.