7 Semesters Down, 2 To Go!

Posted on by Stevara in Uncategorized
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So here we go again. There are officially only TWO semesters (and a capstone dissertation) between now and Dr. Clark. Here are reminders of what I thought after I completed my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth semesters.

My word for for 2020 has been GRACE, and this summer semester could not have been a better operationalization of the word.

Before any of us knew what 2020 would fully bring.

So let’s break down what the top 5 moments of Grace looked like for me this summer:

#5

Balancing working from home, parenting a 6 year old full-time without summer camp, and completing two doctoral courses really left little time for me to focus on me. My social distanced birthday helped me refocus priorities and change course for the rest of the summer.

#4

As a response to one faculty member’s challenge this summer, I wanted to stretch my understanding of data visualization software. Google Data Studio was a requirement for us to learn in the course…. but it just was not a good fit for me. So, I challenged myself to learn Tableau and I’m really proud of the product I produced. In the future, I’d love to go further in my analysis of the topic I chose, but GRACE allows me to be more than okay with what I was able to do and learn. You can peep my final project for the course using Tableau here.

This has been on of my favorite assignments in the Ed.D. program.

#3

Collectively writing a literature review for our capstone dissertation/being paired with amazing women to complete my doctoral journey. We all have competing factors and priorities in our lives but the way we pulled together to write Chapter 2 of our dissertation continues to amaze and inspire me.

#2

Last December, I agreed to facilitate a month long discussion for Teaching Social Work with Digital Technology. My co-facilitator and I decided to postpone the discussion due to the murder of George Floyd and the need to refocus our attention and the discussion to the role of white supremacy and racism in social work education. That redirection proved to be valuable for me and I hope all the attendees appreciated the conversation and are taking steps to evolve social work education.

#1

Working with a great capstone group. Recognizing strengths, weaknesses, and the need for flexibility… I’m glad to be working with the team I am.