A Graduate’s Retrospective.

I can still se myself sitting in my garage, wondering what I was going to do with my career. One of my wife’s friends had gone back to school years before and he went to Full Sail University. I thought it was worth checking in on, when I did I found a University with my own set of interests. I decided to get information about the school and my wife though it would be cool too. After researching the school and our financial capabilities, my wife and I decided to drop the hammer. We sold our 12,050 square foot house in coastal North Carolina and our Volkswagen Jetta and move to Orlando Florida. I think everyone who knew us also knew we are very strong people, but I think they might have had some reluctance to see us off.
After our first year, we accomplished some very great things. I received numerous course director’s awards and almost straight A’s throughout the entire Associate’s program. We had planned to continue onto the Bachelor’s of Entertainment Business program, however a wonderful opportunity presented itself close to the end of the first year. There was a Bachelor’s of Recording Arts now available and for me it was a completers’ course. We headed into year two and the Bachelor’s of Recording Arts program. We had many goals set from the very beginning and we blew past them in the first year. At the end of the second year I had risen to the top of my graduating class and received many more course director’s awards than the previous year. My wife and I had joked with each other during the first graduation, “What if I was chosen to give the commencement ceremony speech next year?” I said I would be like Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School, we laughed. To my surprise, during one of the last class meetings with career development, the graduation staff came in and we were voting for that very gift. I was shocked to find my name within the running for giving the commencement speech for our graduation. I was blown away to hear that I was eventually chosen to give said speech. Then the realization of actually giving that speech came to me and I stressed for the remainder of the time in the program. I typed a speech I though appropriate and we headed off to my second graduation. As I stood in cue to go on stage and receive our diplomas, I was pondering on what I would say when I gave my oncoming speech, especially since the young lady in the graduating class before me had already given three out of the four quotes I had in my speech. Talking about having to think on your feet. Somehow I made it through and with flying colors again.
We embarked on the final destination late last year, the Master’s of Entertainment Business program at Full Sail University. As you may guess, we are pretty insane by now. When I think about all I have learned over the coarse of my tenure at Full Sail and the many journeys intertwined within said journey, I feel a great sense of accomplishment and wonder where this road will intersect with another. I have learned not to have any preconceived notions about life, just when you think you have it figured out and can follow that concrete plan you’ve spent so many hours concocting, boom, you’re picking up the pieces. You have to take all of the information flying at you and value the valuable, while ejecting the trash. The last stop, the runway, the breaks are slowly drawing to, we are so very close to finishing what seemed like an insurmountable task. We have only one more month to go and we will have completed the Master’s of Entertainment Business degree program at Full Sail University and we are the better for it. We have grown as individuals, we have grown as professionals, and we have grown as a couple. I am so proud of my wife for being supportive no matter how uncomfortable the situation was. She has and will always be there for me and I her. I have said it many times, but now I know, there isn’t anything my wife and I can’t accomplish together. We will now put all of the planning and learning to work and soon start our business together. I look forward to a successful future together with my wife doing the things we love to do for support of our lives together. With God, anything is possible.