Jennifer Holbrook

 

Can you share a bit about your professional background?

My background is actually not in leadership, and definitely not in education. I come from a hospitality background. I worked in many food and beverage entities. I worked in hotels for a while and even worked in software program organizations. I was always naturally a leader and usually a high performer. I was naturally asked to be a trainer for new hires coming into those organizations. What inspired me to pursue a career in this is that, at one of the hotels I was working at, my very go-getter attitude caused me to forget a safety principle. My manager at the time had a wonderful response. He said, “I can either send you to HR and have you fill out a bunch of disciplinary paperwork for breaking the rules, or I can have you take over the safety program, the training and the meetings, because I always have a very hard time making those happen.” I opted for option B because that kept me out of HR’s office.

What inspired you to pursue your master's degree in adult learning and leadership?

I fell in love with the whole concept of organizational and corporate training and seeing skills go from concept to practical application. [Also] developing content and event planning that goes on with that. That's how I got into professional training as a career. Then, what inspired me to pursue the program was that, over the 10 to 15 years I served as a trainer in different capacities, I had been self-taught. Everything that I was doing, all the programs that I was developing and running, I was really googling and mimicking other people's setups. I wanted to know if I was doing it right. I wanted to know if what I was doing was effective. If it was ‘by the book,’ if it was what the ‘giants’ of the industry had discovered in their research and recommended based on what they knew from that educational standpoint.

What drew you to this program and K-State?

I explored many options throughout the country. I was absolutely dedicated to having an online, asynchronous program simply because I am a full-time employee and also a full-time wife and mother. Attending in person was not going to work for my lifestyle. When I came across K-State's master's program, it included a leadership component, which so many of us naturally have in our personalities or want to develop more of. I felt like I hit the jackpot. Between the asynchronous schedule format of doing one class at a time and the fact that the whole program was tuned into what I was looking for, I wouldn’t have to put up with additional classes that weren't going to be relevant. It was a trifecta.

How has the program actually aligned with your expectations?

It has been spot on. It has been a little bit of a twilight zone. It seems like every course I take, I am going through that very situation in my professional career. I liken it to the nurses’ syndrome, where every disease they're studying, they all of a sudden have. At the time when I needed program development, I happened to enroll in the program development course. At the time where I needed to understand those foundational concepts, that was the class that I was taking. When there came a major change in my life, I happened to be in Change Management. It has fed into my professional career and even bled over into my personal life.

Can you share examples of courses, projects or specific experiences during the program that impacted your understanding of adult learning and leadership?

I was new to an organization, and they were new to the concept of having a training manager. Prior to my arrival at this organization, training had always been a subset of somebody else's responsibility. There was no structure or program in place. There were a lot of haphazard pieces, and to try to figure out where the holes were and turn activity into a structured program was a perfect direct application of what we had been learning in class.

How has the program prepared you for real-world situations in adult education and in leadership?

It flipped everything that I thought was effective education on its head. I thought a lecture was the only way to do it. That you just stood up in a classroom, put [the slides] on the board, you said the words that were on the [slides], and then everybody walked away and remembered everything that you said. Learning the foundational concepts of adult learning, how adults learn, learning that experience is the key that unlocks the connection between the information and the application. It has changed my approach to everything. You are one person; you can't do it all by proxy. There are extensions of the training team through employees who provide on-the-job training or mentorship to their colleagues. I'm teaching them the concepts of adult learning. I'm teaching them how to adapt to different learning styles so that their training is effective and efficient. It infiltrated everything I thought I knew.

What advice would you give to prospective students who are considering the program?

[My] advice for those who are just coming in: You can do it, I promise you. Have a support system and communicate with that support system that you need dedicated time to focus on your program. If it's a family situation, look your spouse in the eye and say, “Look, for the next 18 to 20 months, dinners and laundry are on you.” Get their buy-in, too. For an older, established adult, that support system outside of yourself and your work is critical.