Where does one go to discover one’s true calling? Apparently to a bed and breakfast in Kentucky.
Marisa Exter had been putting her computer science degree to work at Lucent Technologies / Bell Labs. In that job, she began to discover that succeeding in the professional world requires good communication, regardless of one’s field. “In my Lucent job,” Marisa says, “we had to create professional correspondence, design professional-looking visuals, write email messages which made sense regardless of who we were sending it to, and communicate in many other ways.”
Her Lucent job emphasized that empathy is another crucial skill. “For almost every product or service you design, you need to really be able to understand the user, the client, the stakeholder — to understand the people involved, to make something that’s not just their wants but also their needs,” Marisa says. “You can’t determine that until you’ve spent time with them and gained the ability to empathize with their lives.”
Marisa studied for her master’s degree while working at Lucent. “It was mostly online, but it wasn’t very well designed for distance learning. The program’s weak online aspects bothered me from both computer science and communication perspectives.” While staying at that Kentucky bread and breakfast, she learned about a doctoral program in instructional systems technology. “I got so excited to discover that I could help improve things at the higher education level — particularly distance learning and mentoring.”
In Marisa’s undergraduate internship, she “had the most amazing mentor. He would sit with me as I worked to learn things, then gradually step away when I was ready. That’s what I like to do now — to help students find the right path, to come up and present it, to provide a critique, and to help them be ready for formal reviews. We all have an idea about the self-identity we’re trying to create, but how do we discover what our weaknesses are before we have experience? By the time you’ve had your first year on the job, you’ll understand exactly why we emphasized time management, communication, and empathy.” Marisa learned these lessons herself when she moved from Lucent into higher education.
“My whole history has led me here, and I’m now able to do what I’ve always wanted,” Marisa says. “And I’ve learned it doesn’t matter who you are or how much experience you have if you have good ideas, come prepared to defend what you believe, and are able to communicate your ideas well.”