My Story

What is my story?  I guess I will start with high school.  I went through high school without putting much thought into college.  At the time my family owned a chain of grocery stores, so my thought was that it didn’t matter, I was just going to work at the stores.  Then a series of events led to my family selling the stores and I needed a new plan.  From Junior to Senior year, I still didn’t put much thought into college because I was too uncertain as to what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  I guess I was under the assumption that I needed to know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life when I was 17 years old. 

Once I graduated from high school, I needed a job, so I worked in construction for one of my friend’s fathers through the summer.  After a few months of that, I realized that I needed to do something different with my life.  I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I was certain that I didn’t want to break my back working construction my whole life.  I explored a few options; community college and the military.  I went with the military.

By the following February, I was in Texas for basic training.  I did four years in the active duty Air Force and returned home in 2007 to serve in the MA Air National Guard.  My experience in the Air Force was a great one.  I got to travel to different places and meet a lot of different people.  Unfortunately the job I had in the Air Force wasn’t something that I could use in my civilian life.  I still needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  I decided to stick with the Air Force area and go to a technical school learning about maintaining aircraft in general aviation. 

After school, I got my FAA certification and started a job maintaining helicopters.  The job had no benefits, and I had to drive 75 miles each way.  I had no guidance or teaching; it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do for the long term.  I started looking for jobs elsewhere.  I found a job in Boston working at a renewable energy company.  I started out as an Assembly Technician making solar-powered inverters.  I really didn’t know anything about solar-powered inverters before I started, but the people I was working with were really good about teaching me. 

Shortly after, I was promoted to Assembly Lead, and then about a year later to Manufacturing Assembly Supervisor.  I have managed to work my way up the chain at Satcon without my degree, but I know that if I want to go any further, I am going to have to get it.  I am not content with just being idle; I need to advance.  My three years at Satcon have been extremely busy.  I tried to take some college courses at night, but it didn’t exactly work out as I was planning.  I took one traditional English class and tried to take a hybrid course which alternated between meeting in class one week, and having an online session the following.  One class wasn’t a problem; adding the second class where we were supposed to meet every other week during the winter was a little more of an issue.  We went through a stretch that winter where we had a lot of snow so I had about a five week period where we didn’t meet in class at all.

Even without the difficulties of not being able to meet for the class, at the rate that I was going, I would have been in school for four years.  Again, not something that I could have done with my work, military and personal schedule.  I believe it was during the following summer that I found out about College Unbound.  At first I was a little skeptical but, once I spoke to Jamie, she alleviated a lot of my concerns.  I loved the idea that I could receive college credit for my life experience and other courses that a traditional college probably wouldn’t have awarded me credit for.  I had tons of experience from the military and from my technical courses, to my professional development courses that I was able to receive credit for.  I was ready to chalk all that up as a loss before I spoke to Jamie.

The other part that really turned me on to CU was how I would be using my everyday job as an internship.  I wouldn’t have to alter my schedule much from my everyday work hours.  I was already spending between 8 and 10 hours a day at work, so I could use some of those extra hours to work on my project for that semester.  I thought it was a great idea to have us as students get the experience of working on a project that we wouldn’t normally be working on.  It gave us experience and it helped the company because it is a real project that someone would have to do anyways; a true win-win scenario.

CU is also great because we are interacting with people who are in similar situations as each other.  We understand what one another are going through, and we can share our experiences, issues, difficulties or what has worked for us and allow others to use that information and learn from it.  We are interacting with people on a more personal level, like you would in a work environment.  We are not just showing up to a class, listening to someone lecture and then going home and trying to process it.  We get involved with each other and provide real useful feedback. 

We are taking real subject matters and relating it to our school, work and everyday lives.  The big ten learning goals are areas that really apply to our jobs.  Hearing stories, or watching videos of real people talk about these subjects, really help us relate them to ourselves.  These subjects are the skills that are going to help us succeed in our careers; they are the skills that people are looking for when they go to hire people.

Something that I am still having difficulty with is finding the time to keep up with the work load.  This year, I have been having difficulties with two online courses that I signed up for with Roger Williams.  I thought it would be a great way to get credits toward my degree, and be able to fit it in my busy schedule.  I thought wrong.  I have found out the hard way that this style of learning doesn’t work for me, at least not in the position I am in now with two little girls and a job that is always changing.  I figured out that if I don’t show up somewhere to show my deliverables, I am going to put it on the back burner and focus on something else that I know I am going to be held accountable for in person.  I know that I can’t show up to one of our Monday sessions without the work that was assigned the week before.  This is something that I am trying to work on as the semester goes on.

Another part that I have had trouble with is that my work is very fluid.  Things are constantly changing, like our business model.  Last year we were planning on building a product in our facility in Boston, so my project was based around that.  Then our model changed again, and my project was no longer applicable.  This year, I started a project and shortly after my company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  I am still able to do the project, but a lot of the people that I was planning on using, have been laid off.  I am still able to complete my project, but I am not sure if it will be implemented.

My story has been filled with a lot of uncertainty.  Uncertain about what I wanted to do in high school.  Uncertain about what I wanted to do after high school.  Uncertain about what kind of school to go to after the military.  Uncertain about where my job was/is going.  The one thing I am certain about is that I need my college degree.  There are many reasons as to why I want my degree, but those aren’t as important as the process of obtaining it.  At CU, there are many great aspects of the program; like the flexibility in schedule, class collaboration, work internships and “real” projects, your degree is not going to be handed to you.  You need to take charge of your own learning and get the work done on your own.  There are going to be plenty of people all around you to offer you help and support, but it is going to be up to you to get the work done.

Resilience

Resilience

Part 1

Resiliency is a great trait that you need in order to succeed in anything that you do.  If you don’t have resiliency, you are going to fail one time and never get back on your horse, you are going to find something easier to do that is less fulfilling.  You are always going to think about the time you failed and never tried it again.

One important trait that they talk about in Parent Resources is staying calm under pressure.  If at the first sign of pressure, you crumble, you are never going to be able succeed.  You need to be able to take a deep breath, gain your bearings and handle what is going on.  For example, if you are feeding your infant and he starts to choke, what do you do?  You can’t run away and start hysterically crying.  You need to react to the situation.  You need to keep calm and think about what is happening.  OK, my child is choking, he didn’t completely swallow his food, it is lodged in his air way, I need to dislodge it.  And that is what you do.

Another thing that I agree with in Parent Resources is how they talk about controlling our impulses.  You need to be able to wait to eat that marshmallow, because the reward is greater when you wait.  If you don’t have the ability to control your impulses, you would never be able to get anything done.  I know from my own experience that if I got up and got a candy bar out of the vending machine every time I had the impulse to eat candy, I would be getting out of my chair every five minutes and wouldn’t have any teeth left.

Something that they talk about in Weathering the Storm that I liked is how they talk about using ex-pro athletes on the trading floor.  They say that you can’t get emotional attached.  Sports players are great at this.  If they let every loss get to them, they wouldn’t be able to go on in their sport.  They would get so caught up with that loss that it would affect the way they played the game for the rest of their lives. 

Another trait that is talked about in Weathering the Storm is humiliation.  It is what drives you to not make the same mistake twice.  No one wants to feel humiliated, so your brain won’t allow you to make that mistake again that humiliated you in the first place.  You learn from this and move on.  You can move forward more cautiously.

Something that I liked that Angela Duckworth talked about was how she was measuring grit in the different groups of people.  She talked about it in the children who were in the spelling Bee’s and how the ones who really succeeded were not the ones who were spending time studying the things that they already knew.  They put themselves out of their comfort zone and really spent time studying the information that they didn’t know.  This is dedication. 

I also liked how she talked about the study that she did at West Point on the first term cadets.  They were trying to figure out the formula to predicting the cadets that wouldn’t drop out.  It wasn’t always the ones who had the best stats.  They weren’t always the ones who did the best on the SAT’s or could do the most push-ups.  The ones who lasted the longest were the ones who had traits of perseverance. 

Part 2

Some part of resilience that I hadn’t thought about before is the way that Angela Duckworth spoke about Grit and what that means.  I hadn’t ever thought about grit as being a useful attribute in success.  I thought about resilience, determination and perseverance, but I don’t think I had ever thought about grit before.  I think grit is a combination of all of these.  Grit is what gets you drives you to keep going even though you are exhausted and at your breaking point.  When you have grit, you are able to keep going through all types of adversity. 

Duckworth talked about how the cadets that really had grit, were the ones to make it furthest in the program.  It wasn’t the ones that scored the highest or were the most physically fit.  It was the ones who could dig in and go the extra mile when they were already fatigued and on the brink of defeat.  I believe that grit is a key part of being resilient

I think that being in the military has made me a little gritty.  Looking back at my career, especially early on, I can recall many times in basic training when I just wanted to throw in the towel and quit.  But part of my personality is to never quit.  I was raised in a way that quitting wasn’t an option.  No matter how hard or difficult or meaningless I thought something was at that point in time, I was taught to stick it out, because the lesson I learn from that is going to be valuable later on in life.  I owe this completely to my parents.  I think that if I wasn’t raised like this, I would have given up on so many things at the first sign of adversity.  Being in the military just allowed me to take this even further.  It prepared me for basic training or being deployed away from my family for some number of months.

Another part of the readings that I hadn’t thought of that relates to resilience is; impulse control.  Now that I have read this, it makes a lot of sense.  You can’t let your emotions get the best of you when you begin to get stressed.  If you are at work and something or someone makes you angry, it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to shout at them.  It would be unprofessional and everyone around you would think you were not a professional and can’t handle stress. 

I can think of quite a few times in my short career that someone has made me so angry that I needed to do something.  One way I have learned to deal with this without being unprofessional is to write an email and address it to this person or their boss and just write all the things I am feeling.  Once I was done writing everything that I was feeling, I would read it a few times and not send it.  Maybe I would re-write it so that it was in a more professional manner and then send it to this person.  This would allow me to get all my feelings out, rather than have them bottled up inside.

Another part of impulse control is the ability to delay gratification.  I think this is important because more often than not, the payoff is better the longer you wait.  At the time you may feel like I really need this now, but it usually is better and worth waiting for.  A simple example of this is a bond.  You can cash out a bond after a couple years, but it won’t be worth its full potential.  Do you really need that money right now?  Probably not, but because it is there, you think you do.  It is better to wait and cash it out after it becomes the most valuable.

Self Evaluation

Self-Evaluation

Over the past three months, I have learned a lot from my work at school and through my job.  There has been a lot that is related between the two.  At work, I have gone through so many high’s and low’s.  It has been a roller coaster ride since August.  I have changed positions, departments, rolls, products, bosses, schedule and personnel at least a couple times in the past three months.  I have learned a lot about myself and my job through these experiences. 

Reading about self-evaluation makes me look back at where I was a year ago and three months ago.  Over the past year, I feel like I have grown tremendously through all the experiences I have had.  In the past year, I traveled to Alaska for the military, received a promotion at work, found out my wife was pregnant, got deployed to the U.A.E. with my military unit, brought my second daughter into this world with my wife, changed departments at work, introduced a new product at work, started my second year at CU, changed departments again and am currently going through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy with my company. 

As I look back at the past three months and evaluate where I am and where I would like to be, I can’t help but think I would like to be in a different place than I am now, but at the same time, am glad I am where I am.  I don’t think anybody would want to have to experience bankruptcy with their employer, but now that I am here, I am interested to see what is going to come out of it.  I hope I will never have to experience this again, but am glad I get to learn from it.

Self-evaluation is a great tool to use, but difficult to actually do it.  I think you always want to think highly of yourself, but when it comes down to it, I think we can all improve in one way or another.  It doesn’t mean that we haven’t done good things, it is just easier to identify where you need to improve.  My PA from last year taught me a great deal about this.  He would always challenge me to think about the job that I was doing and where I could improve.  He would never point anything out right away; he would always let me say a few things and then would offer his input.  At the time, I thought he was being a little harsh to put me on the spot like that, but looking back at it now, I’m glad he did what he did.

When it came time for performance reviews, there were no surprises.  I always knew where I stood with him.  I learned from that and tried to apply that to the people that I managed.  The first time I did performance reviews for my people, it was the hardest thing I had done to that point.  I hadn’t thought about it all year, and then had to tell 15 people how I thought they were doing over the past year.  For the most part they were all good, but the ones that I had problems with, I never really brought the issues up before until that point.  I never made that mistake again.

Like the reading says, you want to be on the same page as your manager.  If your manager expects one thing, and you think you are supposed to be doing another, you want to know right away when you are straying away from the path that your manger wants you to be on.  It may be as simple as misinterpretation.  That is an easy fix; your manager clarifies what he wants and you correct your course.

I also agree with the reading when it advises to keep a running log of the accomplishments that you have throughout the year.  This is also something that I didn’t do right away, and when it came time for performance reviews and I had to give some bullet points of what I accomplished throughout the year, it was tough to try and recall what exactly I had done.  This running list just makes it easier on you when the time comes to recite what you did.

When I look back over the past three months in regards to school, I can’t help but think that I have not done so well.  I think I would have done things differently if I could go back and do it over again.  I haven’t done well with my online courses.  It is a lot tougher than I was expecting to have to do these two online courses.  The workload is much greater than I was expecting.  I have trouble as it is trying to balance my work, family, military obligation and CU, and then I added two online courses on top of that.  I should have learned from last year, when I had enough trouble keeping up with the CU workload.  But, I am here now and need to learn from this experience; it is all I can do.

I will accept whatever the consequences are for falling behind and learn from it.  Hopefully it will all turn out alright in the end, but I will have to wait and see what happens.  Going forward, I know what I have to do, but it is a whole lot easier to say than it is to execute.  Luckily, I have a good supporting cast around me to help me through this.  

Mid-Term Program and Self Evaluation

College Unbound @ Roger Williams Take-Home Self- and Program-Evaluation

Name: Luke Hagopian

Academic Liaison: Tracy Money

The Big Ten!

At College Unbound @ RWU, we work to make sure that the work you’re doing is seen as helping your growth in the Big Ten Learning Goals—critical skills that affect project development, your employment, lifelong learning, and your relationship to the city, your peers, and yourself.  In the boxes below please check how you feel you’ve grown and briefly say how/why.

1= needs improvement, 5 = excellent

	1	2	3	4	5
Reflection and How/Why:  I feel like I have grown moderately in this skill because as I move forward in my job, we are constantly going through cycles.  From R&D, to Certification, to Pre-Production, to Production.  I have learned to look back at what we did last time and what we could have done differently and try to apply those learning’s to what we are doing now.				X
Resilience and How/Why:  I think I have learned a fair amount about resilience throughout this semester so far.  Like I said earlier, I have gone through a lot of ups and downs at work and have needed to stay resilient to get through it and keep moving forward.  There have been a lot of design changes, issues with parts and restructuring throughout my company.  I have managed to stay resilient and keep working to get the job done.			X
Collaboration and How/Why: I have done a little collaboration so far.  Probably not as much as I could.  I think I have done more collaborating with the different departments in my job than I have at school.  At work, I need to work with the different mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing engineers to come up with a plan that works for us on the new product we are working on.		X
Creativity and How/Why:  I probably haven’t been as creative as possible so far this semester.  I don’t really consider myself a creative person to begin with.  I think as we come across a problem, I feed off of other people’s ideas and come up with a collaborative solution.  I don’t see myself as being independently creative.  This is something that I can work on going forward.	X
Communication and How/Why:  I think I am a better communicator at work than I am at school.  Work is more familiar to me and I know what needs to be done and I know what is within my limits and all the players involved.  I am more comfortable at work than I am at school.  I really need to work on my communication skills in all areas, rather than just one.		X

	1	2	3	4	5
Critical Thinking and How/Why:  I believe I have been doing some pretty good critical thinking, especially at work.  I am able to access and analyze the information in order to make an effective decision.  I feel like I have grown a fair amount in this subject area.  Before, I would have to go to a few people and get help accessing or interpreting information.  Now I am able to access it with minimal help and able to draw my own conclusions on what needs to be done.			X
Applied Knowledge and How/Why:  I think I have grown a fair amount in this area.  I am able to apply the knowledge that I have learned to the decisions that I need to make.  When I look at my backlog report, I know what is coming up in the future and I can start to look for when the parts will be arriving so I can prepare the floor for these orders.  I used to just wait until the last minute because I didn’t know any better.			X
Accountability and How/Why:  I know I have not grown enough in this area.  I know I take accountability for all of my actions or lack thereof, but I need to get better at managing my time and work load.  I am not very good at accounting for deadlines at work or at school. This is an area that I really need to work to improve upon.	X
Advocacy for Self and Others How/Why:  I have grown a fair amount in this area, but know that I can still improve in some areas.  At work, I take charge without the need of my boss to tell me to do so.  In other ways I know I need to improve.  Like; I won’t speak up when I want my boss to back up a little and let me run my people my way.  Or, give me all of the information instead of bits and pieces so that I can make better informed decisions.			X
Problem Solving and How/Why:  I have learned a bit about problem solving so far in this semester.  Through my experience, I have learned what are the right questions to ask in order to come up with the best possible solution.  Sometimes I know what we need to do to get past a problem, but am limited with implementing the solution because of other outside factors.  I wish I could stop everything once a problem is identified and get it rectified right away.			X

Additional Comments on the Big Ten:  I think reading and learning about these beforehand has opened me up to these in my everyday life and job.  I am able to relate what we are learning in our Monday night sessions to what I do every day at work.

What content areas (course equivalents) have you explored and what content areas do you need to focus on in the second half of the semester:  I have explored other management and leadership areas through books that I have been reading.  Areas such as; Time Management, Authentic Speaking, Risk Management and Project Management.  I really need to focus on the areas that I am already signed up for, like my two online classes.  I have gotten too far behind and am afraid I am not going to be able to catch up.

How has the structure and form of College Unbound @ RWU (Monday Nights, your one-on-one work with your Academic Liaison, your relationship with your professional mentor) allowed for you to explore your learning in new ways?  In what ways has this been hard?  (And for second and third year students in the program, how has this semester differed and how has it affected the work you’ve done?)  CU has allowed me to explore my learning in new ways because it is making me think in a way that I don’t normally think.  It is forcing me to spend more time with my boss (PM) and opened up new dialogue with him, that I don’t think I would have had under normal circumstances.  I enjoy the one-on-one time with my AL and enjoy the group work on Mondays.  Something that I really like from last year was when we met together as a small group with our AL outside the Monday session.  I feel like there was a lot learned in those groups.  We were able to open up and really get to know the other people in our small group, and learned a lot from our peers.  Sometimes they put something into perspective that you AL wouldn’t necessarily see.  I really enjoyed that part of it last year. 

I think enrolling in two online classes was a mistake for me this semester.  I thought I would be able to handle the work load, but feel like I have failed in that area.  It was something new that I was willing to explore, but in hindsight, feel like it was a bad decision on my part.

What do you feel that you need to do differently in the second half of the semester?  I really need to manage my time better and be accountable for all areas of my work.  I have not done enough with my online classes.  I have fallen way too far behind.

In what ways do you want the program to evolve in the second half of the semester?  I really enjoyed having the speakers last year.  I know we talked about this already, but I think it was one of the highlights from last year.  Also, maybe if we could have more time in our small groups. 

Following are some questions related to technology at College Unbound @ RWU.  Please rate your level of knowledge/comfort and include a brief explanation—be specific about struggles so that we can plan specific workshops to address your needs. 1 = needs improvement, 5 = excellent

	1	2	3	4	5
I am comfortable using Google Blogger (i.e. creating posts, adding pictures to a post, adding video, following others’ blogs). Explanation:  I feel like I know the basics, but found myself having trouble trying to post a picture, which I thought I would have no problem with.  I haven’t tried adding video, yet.			X
I am comfortable using Google Drive. (I.e. uploading documents, revising personal learning plan and other documents on Drive, sharing documents with others). Explanation:  I feel like I am pretty good with Drive.  I am comfortable using it, but I always know there is more to learn.				X
I am comfortable using Microsoft Word.(i.e. creating a new document, word processing, formatting a document, creating tables, using headers and footers, saving or renaming files). Explanation:  Again, I am comfortable with this, but know there is always more to learn.				X
I am comfortable using presentation tools such as PowerPoint or Prezi (i.e. creating slides, changing backgrounds/themes, adding pictures, creating tables/pie charts/other data displays). Explanation:  I feel like I know the basics with PowerPoint.  I know there is a lot more to learn in PowerPoint.  I don’t really know anything about Prezi.  I looked at a tutorial, but haven’t tried to use it at all.			X
I am comfortable finding valid/credible sources for research using Roger Williams University resources and other online tools (i.e. RWU online journal database, Google Scholar, RefWorks for citations and research storage) Explanation:  I haven’t really used any of these sources.  I have a lot to learn in this area.		X

Please mark any of the following Social Networking tools that you use on a regular basis:

Facebook      Twitter          LinkedInX    Other? (Please List)

I would benefit from a technology workshop on:   LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+_______________.

I would attend a College Unbound technology workshop if it were offered (mark all that apply):

Monday 8:15pmX   Wednesday 6pm     Saturday a.m.                      Saturday p.m.                      Other?