Erin's Blog

This is my second-to-last semester as an online master's student in Florida State's instructional systems and learning technologies program. It's been such an intense but rewarding journey! When I started this program back in January of last year, I was hoping to get through it as quickly as possible so that I could get started working as a designer immediately. Little did I know that accepting an internship during my second semester as a master's student and being offered a full-time position with that company after it ended would be in the cards for me. After this past spring semester I had to slow down to one class at a time for many reasons, one of them being that I wanted to make sure that I was giving my best efforts toward both my schoolwork and my job. I'm actually glad that it has worked out this way because I have so immensely enjoyed taking these classes, serving as vice president of the Instructional Systems Student Association, and just being a part of ...

One of my personality traits that is both a blessing and a curse (it's mostly a curse at the moment) is that I love to be in charge of things, partly because I like to feel like I have control over a given situation. I volunteer as an adviser for the chapter of my sorority at Rollins College here in Winter Park, FL. When I first started out, I did not have too many responsibilities because at the time I was working in hospitality and my hours were too inconsistent for me to be able to really commit to it. However, once I went back to school and moved closer to Rollins, I was able to give them more of my time. This winter, the former chapter adviser let us know that she will have to move overseas for her job and she needed one of us to step up to take her place. Well, guess who put her name into the hat and got the role? Me. I was really excited at first, but then all of a sudden a lot of issues with the chapter started to come to the surface and I started to wonder what I was getti...

How was this the second-to-last week of the summer semester already? I have no idea what's going on anymore. I have had the wildest time during this pandemic trying to manage coursework along with the ballooning amount of work that I have had to do for my full-time job, not just this past semester but in the spring as well. I knew graduate school was going to be challenging but I was not expecting it to be like this! I feel like a juggler in a circus act sometimes.  This past week I completed my produsage assignment, which was a lot more difficult than I was anticipating. I kept changing my mind on which tool I wanted to use, what features of the tool I wanted to implement, etc. I think it is decent but I have taken a look at some of the other produsage projects that others have shared within the discussion board set up for next week and I am blown away by them. I have had to remind myself multiple times this semester that I need to strive for completion, not perfection, and this w...

*TW: Mentions of COVID-19 and anxiety* Lately, my anxiety has been a bit high and I've felt a little on edge. It's probably mostly due to the dumpster fire that is Florida's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I think it also has to due with getting a new puppy soon and the stress of figuring out how to introduce her to our crazy cat, getting assignments prepared for the end of the semester (I didn't know that the last week of the summer semester is next week because I have no concept of time anymore), preparing for doctorate applications and the GRE, etc. This past week, I read a tweet from someone I follow who is a Ph.D. candidate that said, "Calling it now, the #instructionaldesign job seeker pool is going to saturate due to educators not wanting to go back in the classroom." I don't know why, but it just REALLY upset me. I am graduating in December and the thought of the job market I am going into becoming saturated on top of the destruction the pan...

I've mentioned it a few times on this blog before, but I'll restate it if you didn't read those past posts: my ultimate goal is to get my doctorate and work as a professor. I feel like this is a bit risky with how many higher education institutions are hiring more adjunct faculty than tenure-track faculty, but I firmly believe that it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. When I first started the ISLT master's program here at FSU I figured that I would work in the field for about 2 or 3 years before pursuing a doctorate, but after this pandemic and all of the turmoil that has been wrought because of it I've come to the conclusion that life is too short and I need to go after what I want. So now here I am, looking up potential programs to apply to on my phone while taking breaks during my work day and getting ready to take the GRE all over again. The practice books that I ordered just came in today, in fact, and I am not looking forward to this process at ...

This week in class, we studied two subjects with one being a subject that has not been addressed in my previous ISLT classes: social justice. Although our field relies primarily on learning theory and technology, we still fall under the larger umbrella of education, and education in and of itself is about social justice. Education is the one factor that can drive change in all aspects of society and change peoples' circumstances for the better (or at least it is in my opinion.) As instructional designers we are relatively limited in how we can advocate for the issues that we hold close to our hearts with our work. I suppose the best way to do so would be to volunteer your time creating educational materials and/or training programs for the organizations that matter the most to you, or you could just flat-out work in the nonprofit sector. However, I do believe that as a field we have the responsibility to actively work towards a better future. I imagine that this will probably look ...