July's Gratitude - NSCC Edition

Another month and so much to be grateful for.  I thought for this post though, I would focus on one thing in particular.  For those that don't know, I left North Shore Community College at the end of July for a new position at Regis College.  It was a hard decision but the right decision.  So I want to spend this reflection thinking about how grateful I am to the many people at NSCC that have made so much difference in my life.

North Shore Community College changed my life in so many ways.  After I attained my bachelor's degree, I ended up getting an associate's degree at NSCC in Criminal Justice.  I did this because I was a year out of college and still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  I knew I wanted to go back to grad school but I didn't know for what.  So in the meantime, I wanted to continue to be intellectually engaged and because the place that I worked at after college paid a certain amount to go to college, so long as you were in a degree program, NSCC was the best place for me to go.

I made friends in the program and learned much from my instructors, all of whom were accessible, friendly, and understanding.  Two of them remains a life-long friend, mentor, and amazing influence on my life.  They have guided, supported, and engaged with me from day one and still continue to do so until this day, even in my decision to leave NSCC.  Those were the first two friends I made there, but certainly not the last.

When I returned after my Masters Degree, I was welcomed by those two people and many others who treated me with respect, kindness and encouragement.  They guided me to improve my teaching skills, while also taking advantages of the many trainings and opportunities that the institution had to offer.  

As a part-time faculty member, there are so many great friends, mentors, and colleagues I encountered that shaped and prepared me to become an instructional designer.  These relationships continued as I became the instructional designer and full-time staff at the institution and new ones flourished.  It's funny, I often heard from faculty and staff about how much they learned from me and all I could say is that street worked in both directions.  I can't really imagine what my life would be without NSCC.  It's had such an amazing and powerful impact on me as a student, an instructor, an instructional designer,  a leader, and most importantly, as a human.  What made working at NSCC so wonderful has been the people I got to work with on a daily basis, the coworkers and our director on our team, colleagues in other departments, the invested faculty, and of course, the students.  

It's so very curious how our lives take turns one never expects and how the connections that one makes can often find ways of having long term repercussions (in this case, beneficial).  I think about those early relationships that I had and how they put me in a place, ten years later (almost to the semester) where my professional trajectory is so very very different from what I could have imagined.  I am so grateful for those who helped shaped my future were the faculty, staff, and administration of NSCC ten years ago and of course, many of them today.  
  
Though it is the right time for me to leave, I leave with a saddened heart of not being able to see so many people that I have been grateful to see on a daily basis and from whom I have learned so much, felt so welcomed, and regularly inspired me to do my job better.  

I could create a list of the many many people that I am thankful for at NSCC.  Of course, I feel like I would be listing two-thirds of the staff and faculty with the remaining third being those whom I never got to work with directly.  Thank you.


Interested in my other reflections on gratitude for the year, check them out:

• June's Gratitude
• May's Gratitude
• April's Gratitude
• March's Gratitude
• February's Gratitude
• January's Gratitude

By Any Other Nerd Blog by Lance Eaton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.