My first keynote
Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to a room full of prospective students at CUNY’s continuing education school, the School of Professional Studies. It was scary and exciting all at once but I had a great time sharing my story and speaking to them one on one afterwards. Below is the speech I prepared. Once I was in front of the crowd I totally improvised but stuck to my original speaking points. Enjoy.
CUNY School of Professional Studies Admissions Event — May 3rd, 2017
My path to CUNY began in the fall of 1998. I wanted to go to Baruch College and graduate with a business degree but unfortunately I was not accepted. I needed to get my grades up so I ended up at CUNY City Tech in Brooklyn where I went on to earn an associate’s degree in accounting. I reapplied and was finally accepted to Baruch in the fall of 2002. I spent the next 5 years as a part-time student seemingly wasting away trying to accomplish a goal with far too many obstacles in my way.
By the fall of 2007 life had taken precedence over trying to complete a college degree so I dropped out of school for the first time ever. I felt like a failure. My dream was to graduate from Baruch, become a CPA and work at one of the big firms like E&Y or PWC. As I reluctantly walked away from that dream I realized that it wasn’t my dream at all. This was just the career path placed in front of anyone who could endure the obstacles Baruch College placed in front of its Zichlin Business school students.
So here I am a year later, still out of school, working an entry level job that was going nowhere when a post card from SPS arrived at my home. “CUNY now has an online degree in business! Come to the grad center and learn more about it.” I had toyed with the idea of online learning before but the cost of schools such as University of Phoenix didn’t make sense to me. After all, the “online classes” thing was still new and I didn’t know if an employer would take me seriously if I told them I graduated from an online college. I showed up anyway, willing to learn more. That’s when I met Brian Peterson and his admissions team and was sold.
SPS offered a comparable business degree with a very specific timeline to meet my goal of graduating from college. The professors were also teaching at other CUNY schools so I knew they were legit. I met with an advisor who prepared me for this new learning process I was about to take on. Let me tell you right now, going to school online is not easy at all. It requires a level of self-discipline I didn’t know was possible. After my first semester I learned what it meant to “pace yourself”. I started with 2 classes and decided to speed up the process by taking on a full class load. After overwhelming myself with 4 classes on top of having a full time job and being a parent, I scaled back to 3 classes per semester.
This was a tough workload to manage but I felt I needed to challenge myself and graduate within a reasonable amount of time. This format worked for me but it may not work for others. For 2 full years I did nothing more than go to school. God bless my wife. She took on so much to allow me the space and time I needed to complete my degree. Once I was done, I was done! All of the sleepless nights and long weekends and disconnecting myself during family vacations had finally paid off. I was a college graduate ready to take the next step in my career.
My SPS degree opened the doors to managerial roles that were previously closed. I knew I was capable of performing the role of a manager but none of my prior employers would give me the chance. So I took my degree and 8 years of financial services experience and landed a supervisor role with another company. The new role came with a $20K bump in pay along with a lot more responsibilities. All of which I was ready for.
Fast forward to 2017 and I find myself at another crossroad. How do I reinvent myself and pursue other opportunities outside of finance and accounting? My education and work experience have given me a broad knowledge of different fields and roles, but is it enough to convince a hiring manager to take a chance on me? SPS groomed me to seek advancement within the workforce and have the courage and self-assurance to aim high and keep shooting until I hit my target. My time as a student here also taught me the value of networking. Hopefully it can do the same for the rest of you.
