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Students: Educational and Student Success Center

professionalism

What Do You Expect from Your Profession

I want to finish this series on expectations by talking about your future professional career.  Just as your expectations for your education and instructors impact your level of academic motivation and satisfaction, your expectations for your profession are important to your success in your professional and personal life.

Why Did You Choose Your Program

If knowing why you are here at UAMS was significant in maintaining your motivation to work hard and do your best to be academically successful, then knowing why you have selected your program is going to be important in your future success and satisfaction. So, why did you choose your program? What attracted you? What do you expect your profession is going to do for you?

Everyone has their own reasons for going into a profession. Some want to make a difference in quality of care patients get. Others enter a program to gain experience necessary for a future job. I had one student tell me that she wanted to become an Emergency Medical Technician to gain experience that would help her get into a Physician Assistant program. An RN was seeking a master’s degree to move into nursing administration. These students had good reasons and clear expectations for their programs. It helped them stay motivated when things got difficult.

What Have I Done?

How much did you know about your future profession when you chose your program? Had you done your research? It’s awful to begin a program, and realize half way through that it isn’t right for you. It may be more challenging or less interesting than you thought it would be. How prepared were you for your program?

Learn all you can before about the profession before you start the program.  Ask about the challenges, the demands, and the rewards so your expectations are better aligned with reality. Don’t make assumptions based on your past academic performance. If the program administrators tell you that the program is rigorous or challenging, believe them. They want you to be as prepared as possible when you enter the profession.

Focus On Your Life Goals

Make sure that your chosen profession will fit in with your future life goals. I have friends who chose a career in nursing for the flexibility it gives them. They both work coverage shifts. They don’t have a guaranteed schedule, they just fill in as needed. One is a dedicated endurance athlete, and the other loves to travel and works all over the country. Their professional choices aligned perfectly with their life goals. My primary care is provided by a Physician Assistant. She works 9-5 Monday through Friday, so she is home in the evenings with her husband and kids. She chose to become a Physician Assistant because she wanted to have time with her family. Again, her career choice and life goals were well matched. This has allowed her to be successful.

Your expectations for your profession are another part of your motivation to work hard and be successful in your program. When you know what you want, it’s much easier to stay focused. So know why you chose your profession, and what you expect to get out of it. It will make your academic journey more purposeful and enjoyable.

Mastery: Telling the Story

Part of mastery is telling the story.

The author of this quote worked for many years in the neonatal unit of a major hospital in the Chicago area.  As she observed, many families lovingly recite the details of the births of their children.  There almost gets to be a ritualized procedure in the retelling of these stories at subsequent family get-togethers.  When the relatives gather for birthdays, for holidays, for weddings, and even to mourn together for funerals, how often the conversation turns to pulling back together these reveries, to remembering.  The same portions of the birth stories are told in the same order by the same participants.  The expectant mother tells how nervous the cabbie was when he arrived at the house and during the drive to the hospital, no matter how she reassured him that she was not going to deliver on the way.  And, oh yes, she had to give him directions.  Her mother chimes in to narrate how her grade school principal came to her classroom door to tell her she needed to leave immediately for the hospital a month earlier than her daughter’s baby was due (for you youngsters, there was a time, not that long ago, when there were not cell phones).  As she tells of her hurried drive, she still trembles with that same anxiety she felt that day.  And so it goes: the father tells his side, the other siblings pipe up, extended family add bits about where they were and how they heard.  Telling the story is one way of mastering this life we live.

Tell Your Story

And here you are, conceiving all sorts of new thoughts as a student at UAMS.  In due time you too are expected to deliver.  What sort of story will you tell?  Who are the heroes?  Who are the villains, the trusty sidekicks, the crusty trainer, the comic relief, the love interest?  What are the unexpected plot twists, the obstacles to be overcome?  Is this a feel good tear-jerker?  Is this the story of a small-town girl who becomes the family medical expert?  What sort of character development have you undergone here?  You are here to master your material, to become a master of your trade.  Part of your mastery is telling your story.  Make it a good one, and tell it well.

Susan Johnson Kline. “The Voices on Obstetrics: Participants and Partners.”