I did it backwards, but I did it!

Well, in 1970 I entered college, not really looking for an education, but a way to leave home and be on my own. I gave little thought to why one went to college, you know, to prepare one for making a living, I just moved on to better things. Then a Mission took me away for 2 years, where I started figuring life out. When I returned, I was a much different student. Now I had a goal to find my eternal soul-mate and get a job to raise a family. I found my soul-mate after 8 months of searching. She was beautiful, and made me want to find the key to success so we could have all a family needed, two cars, a home and a TV, VCR, Atari video game system!

As a married student, I worked at a Zales Jewelers in the mall, managed a small apartment building and Faye worked at a pet shop as a dog groomer. We were happy. Cherstin was born! When Faye was pregnant with Natalie, I had worried that I could afford two children and a wife, so I went into business with a partner and we opened two jewelery stores with plans to have 10 stores within 2 years. School was left uncompleted; I lacked 24 credit hours to complete my degree.

Well, the business was successful. School was forgotten. I went on to sell my portion of the business and go into managing shopping centers, then formed a marketing company that took us to Columbus, OH. I then went to the Limited, Inc and finally took a great opportunity in Phoenix as Director of Strategic Planning with Checker Auto parts. Education was still forgotten.

Then I noticed that my lack of academic credentials was a big negative in my professional career. I spent some time self-justifying that life experience had taught me more than any moldy professor could have, but gradually I resigned myself to the fact that careers must be build upon a foundation of academic preparation. It was a credential that was expected and required.

At 51 years of age I went back to school. I lost all but 33 of my original 99 credit hours from BYU and stared back to taking college classes. At this time I was Bishop and working full time. I almost fainted while trying to master college algebra in online classes of a very concentrated 5 week course.

I got my Bachelor's degree in Business Marketing at age 55 and just completed my Master's degree in Organizational Psychology at age 57. I am glad I could finally reach my academic goals and attain today's minimum requirement in education for serious consideration for a position in corporate America. The problem was...

The Problem was that I did it backwards. I am now competing with younger Master's graduates and young is preferred to, well, not-so-young. My message to my children and son in laws, and anyone else that sees this is, "Get your education now!" There are ways to do it. You can get an education loan. You can choose an online University. You can find the time. My message is, "Do it now."

It will prepare you for your future. I wished I had had a person in my life that would have pushed me to stay in school, get that Master's degree in my 20's or 30's so it could have blessed my family for all that time. But I did not. So, here's my message of love to you. Do it now. An eduction is the key that unlocks the door for your future.

Love to all! DAD