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5 I The Best Online Education System in the world
OF EXPERIENCE AND EXPERIENCES
Kathlyn Q. Barrozo
Class of 1991, University of Santo Tomas
B.S. Medical Technology
Experiences in our daily lives often serve as a tremendous reservoir of information and guidance for how we
eventually define ourselves in the future. We should never consider a single experience as being singularly
influential or motivational. A single experience could inspire us more greatly than all others, but a life lived fully
considers all experiences as vital and contributory to what is and what will be.
Take teaching for example. A young teacher is well-advised to seek the wisdom of those who have come before
her. She should never consider a good educational background as the only passport to career success. She must
never think of herself as being in a league of her own, for she is yet to fashion her own league. Instead, she
must look to older, more experienced teachers who had started molding countless minds long before she
stopped wearing baby diapers. She should look to older advice and older ways of teaching, for in these times of
more enlightened education and the never-ending introduction of newer learning concepts, it is still the old
ways that genuinely work. In order for a young teacher to become effective at her chosen profession, she
needs to trust the educational system that has molded her to become what she is now.
Priests and nuns often derive stories from their day-to-day experiences and encounters with people to create
more convincing settings for their advice-giving. I have often observed my favorite priestly sermons begin with
amusing personal anecdotes and end with lessons on life in connection to the day’s biblical gospels. I find that
the more extraordinary priests are never afraid of exposing their daily grind for our daily bread. Such men of
the cloth-and nuns, too-have never forgotten that the choice to become servants of God had stemmed from
their personal experience and experiences of finding God in the smallest of ways.
Parenthood is another arena that needs both experience and experiences to become more effective and
efficient. No, we should not approach being a parent as always having to wing it, despite the modern concepts
on bringing children up. Parenthood plays a delicate balance between what is right and what needs to be done.
It is not some kind of specialized field where one size fits all—it is a veritable plethora of contradictions and
concessions. Parents should exercise parental authority steadily but gently, firmly but lovingly. Rules are rules,
but who is to say when a child would eventually commit an infraction and thereby create changes in the
regulations?
Dear reader, you might be in an entirely different career path from those mentioned above. But it helps to
never forget that your experiences in life and whatever experience you amass for your career ultimately shape
you into what you are now and what you’ll become in the future.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
1.
Why is it important to take our personal experiences as a whole and not singularly when we plan our
future?
2.
How is experience in a career contributory to one’s future in that career?
3.
Is there any particular person in your field whom you admire for his/her experience in the industry?
What makes this particular person special?
4.
How can someone new to your field amass experience necessary to succeed? Be as specific as
needed.
5.
Why is relevant experience on the job often a qualification used by employers in the hiring process?