Once I’ve completed my BA in Integrated Social Sciences, it is my hope to be a better father, a better husband, a better member of my community and finally, a better information technology leader. I started this journey with the intention of bolstering my awareness of society, the environment and social justice as I approach my retirement years. I believe education is the best provision for old age, but it should be an education which inspires me, is relevant to issues I find important and gives me a modicum of hope I may become part of the solution, and not the problem. As I’ve mapped out my curriculum through summer 2025, I’ve come to realize my classes, as a whole, do indeed, represent my interests in society, the environment and how sciences intersect with them both. Combine with classes in art study, foreign language and history, and my education track is in alignment with my desire to be a more well rounded member of society, but also as a shining example to my middle school-aged daughters.
It is my hope from my decades of career experience with distributed processing systems, and how businesses leverage these systems to collaborate with each other and within, that I may be inspired by the parallels between it and human society, and how sciences intersect and collaborate to solve much bigger problems. Enabling effective collaboration has been a key element in my information technology career, and has afforded me much satisfaction and success. Learning how different business disciplines intersect, whether it be finance, development, analytics, constellation-engineering, medical or design, I’ve been working decades front and center providing technological solutions to enable integration and collaboration across all these different areas. Weeks into my Integrated Social Sciences education, I find many parallels between the collaborative aspects within my career, and the analysis in social sciences with how different sciences intersect to solve problems in society. These similarities emphasize how my social sciences education relates to my information technology career.
One of the biggest challenges facing human civilization is climate change, and how human activity has contributed to problems within the environment. From problems around environmental justice, where the most vulnerable people in societies are most likely to feel the effects of climate change, to business interests creating and influencing policies that ignore the environment, to poorer countries lacking the resources to stand against imperialistic policies from their wealthier neighbors. All of these factors are important to me, and I believe are problems humanity has to solve in order for humanity to persist into the future. Framing my ISS education to better equip me to understand and affect these issues to enact positive change is important to me, as I may not only set an example for my daughters, but also affords me the possibility to leave a legacy of positive change within my own community.
In summary, gaining an education that is aligned with my morality, my personal goals, my career goals and most importantly, my family goals, is the single most important thing I can do as I’m closing in on retirement. Following my ISS education, it is my hope to become a more well rounded citizen and set an example for my daughters that it’s never too late to improve yourself. I hope to become a better and more informed community member and strengthen my position in my career as an enabler of collaboration.