Professional development

My biggest wonder around this time is "How do these students, who are finishing their capstone. feel about having nearly completed their bachelor's degrees?" Until I advanced my own education, I always felt that as baccalaureate meant little or nothing, simply because it typically didn't mean any more money. "If it was important," I would think to myself, "then they would be paid more." But I eventually came to realize that it wasn't so much about what you earned, but about what you were doing. While many RNs with BS degrees do work in the same positions as those without BS degrees, the baccalaureate opens a number of doors that would have hitherto been closed. It give you options. So who is exercising those options? Who wants to stay where they are? Does anyone feel any difference?  

For me, coming to TWU was a form of professional development. I had not previously taught doctoral students until I began working here and I have learned a tremendous amount in the past four years about doctoral education. That experience has given me options. Like yourself, I now have the ability and the vision to undertake different work than I did a few short years ago. It seems like whenever I look back a few years and reflect on my life, I see that I've changed and grown enormously in a short period of time.

What better way could there be to live than in constant growth? "Growth for the sake of growth," said John Dewey, referring to learning in order to develop the ability to learn more, was the primary goal of education. He was talking about students who were children, but I find that the same goes for teachers who are adults - or at least for me. I feel that I am at much the same stage that I perceive you to be: I have grown significantly and am ready for new challenges!

Am I wrong about that with you? Is the BS just a piece of paper? Or is it something more? Did you always feel that way or has something changed while you've been in the program?