I'm Going Back To School

When self-isolation broke back in March, in addition to my current responsibilities as Senior Director of Product, running the web, mobile apps and emerging product teams at CNBC, I knew I wanted to do something with my time. I’d be getting at least two hours of the day back from the commute along Route 80. Not long afterwards, I resolved to do three things. To learn something, to make something, and to stop doing something. And like most of us, I’ve read dozens of books and watched hundreds of movies in parallel. It’s been a fun weekly journey since then, and almost 40 weeks later, I’m proud to look back so far on having completed 7 different online courses from The University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Wesleyan University, The University of Toronto and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as having made several self-published books of previous writings and creative projects. I also lost 60 pounds, 6 inches off my waist, and grew my hair out. I look and feel completely different, for the better, than the last time I was in the office.

But with my newfound time affluence, it was really the renewed love of learning that truly took hold. I was loving the self-initiated creative projects, and especially those moments where the physical books I was making arrived in the mail, and the weight loss journey has certainly been a lot of fun along the way, but the multi-month online University courses have scratched an itch that’s been dormant for over twenty years. I started with a couple of familiar courses, really art history refreshers around a favorite subject of mine, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and The New York School. I’d been looking around for a way to do some online courses for a while, but found a good home for what I wanted to do at Coursera. They seemed to offer a wide range of topics from some very well-known academic institutions, and I committed to start diving in.

And it didn’t take long to take hold. The first one I completed was The University of Pennsylvania’s Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology, taught by the fantastic and inspiring Professor Struck. He truly brought the material to life, and I’d always wanted to study Ancient Classics but had never found the right opportunity, either at school or afterwards. He was the kind of teacher I had really missed since my time in the art history department at Kingston University. For me it was inspiring, motivating, engaging and a genuine joy to spend time with Homer, Virgil, Hesiod, Heraclitus and more, and I loved not just attending the classes, but also diving into the texts afterwards. Gods, monsters, betrayal, murder, all the elements of some of the world’s greatest stories. The work was challenging, but intensely, intensely rewarding. It was this course that sowed the seed for an eventual application to The University of Pennsylvania a few months later.

I subsequently spent a lot more time in Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as some time with several psychology and behavioral courses, which have been instrumental to thinking better about what I do in our Product team at work. Coursera awards digital certificates at the end of each course, and I felt a strong sense of pride in sharing them with folks online.

But I got to feeling like I wanted to do something more substantial. More long-term, and in the context of academic achievement, more real. I’d loved the courses from The University of Pennsylvania, and of course, have close personal ties to, and a deep love of Philadelphia. It’s been hard not to have had the opportunity for a few weekend trips there this year, and I really miss it. We have a Wawa being built about 5 miles from where we live at the moment, and I cannot wait for it to open already.

So I resolved to try and find out what it’d take to do an undergraduate degree at UPenn. I had no idea at all. I attended an online information session, and had lots of questions around the application process, how it all worked, what the whole work / life balance might consist of, and what might be on offer in the curriculum. But the more I learned about it all, the more I wanted to do it. The more I felt like it was something I wanted to see if I could do - to see if I was capable of doing. I had a great feeling from the admissions staff, something that I’d already felt from the Coursera professors there.

I’ve been away from education for a very, very long time, and my experience of universities is very euro-centric. I graduated from Kingston University for my BA(Hons) Degree in 1996, and from The Jan van Eyck Akademie (Masters) in 1998. Neither of them had prepared me for what it’d take to apply to the Ivy League in America. But I decided to go for it - after all, I no longer had the pressure of the results of the education needing to ‘lead to employment’, and I had nothing at all to lose. I chatted about it with my manager and my human resources manager, really to just get their counsel on what I was thinking, and they couldn’t have been more supportive and encouraging. The tagline on our badges at NBCU is ‘Here you can’, and I got a very, very strong sense of that during our talk. I can at NBCU. They wanted me to go for it, offered some advice for what it might look like for NBCU benefits to support the financial implications, and were cheering me on from the moment I brought it up. The more people I talked to, the more I believed I could do it. I worked through the necessary paperwork (which was no easy task - try to get validated for course credits from a non-US academic institution from over twenty years ago when there wasn’t even a concept of course units at the time).

I applied, and as part of my application I told them this:

Ever since I left postgraduate education in 1998, I’ve wanted to return.

But after 22 years, and having spent most of this year in self-isolation and working remotely, the time at home has scratched the itch of educational growth in empowering me to complete a number of online courses. Some were professionally focused in augmenting my role as Senior Director of Product at financial news network CNBC, and some were personally focused on my love of Mythology, Art History, and Ancient Classics.

It was during this odyssey that I discovered The University of Pennsylvania’s Greek and Roman Mythology Coursera class, taught by Professor Struck, which captured my imagination in a way that has motivated me to enjoy and complete more online courses from UPenn, and ultimately encourage me to apply to the main Bachelor of Applied Arts & Science online program.

Simply put, Professor Struck brought the material to life in a way that inspired me to take action.

The online Bachelors of Applied Arts & Sciences at UPenn is uniquely constructed to help me grow my professional career through its focus on behavioral science, neuroscience, leadership and anthropology, and at the same time inspire me to think deeply about the other things I’m passionate about, Ancient Classics and Art History.

Being a strong and effective product leader requires a deep understanding of the emotions, behaviors and motivations behind those who use our products, as well as a keen sense of how to build them collaboratively internally with others as a leader of people. I’m excited to take on the challenge of augmenting and growing both as part of my professional development, and the format and pacing of each module is a bullseye for what I’ve been looking for.

I’m originally from London, having come to The United States in early 2002 as part of an internal promotion during my time at the home shopping network, QVC. In addition to my professional career first as a designer, then as an product and marketing manager for New York’s largest real estate brokerage, to working at The New York Times, to now leading financial news products for NBC Universal, I’ve always loved writing. I’ve written extensively about technology, and have recently written several longform pieces concerning my lifelong love of Star Wars, my immigration journey, and my cancer survival story. I’m writing all my stories down for my daughter to read and enjoy one day.

My work has been published in many online and print publications, including The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Crains and The Guardian. I’ve taught art and design at many institutions including Oxford University, Yale University and Middlesex University in the UK. I’ve also been very fortunate to have spoken publicly all over the world during my time in the real estate industry, including Barcelona, Mexico City, Vancouver, and all over the domestic United States.

Should I be successful in my application, I can’t wait to write the next chapter of my story at The University of Pennsylvania.

My application was supported by a couple of very flattering recommendations (thanks Al and Christina!), and then I waited. About a week later I heard back:

When the ‘decision’ email came in, I had the exact same moment of ‘well, I guess things are about to change here’ as I had when the letter arrived from Kingston University in 1993. I thought, this is where I find out if I can even do this, and my hands shook as I hit that open button.

I was thrilled. I AM thrilled. Not only did I get in, but as is usual for students that have been away from education for a while, or otherwise don’t have proof of prior academic achievement, I had assumed I’d be entering under the gateway program, where you have to ‘prove your way in’ across four different courses in the span of twelve months. My application was strong enough not to need that, and I’ve been accepted into the full program. I start in January 2021 as a student on the online Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences undergraduate program at The University of Pennsylvania, and I am truly so excited. I’ve yet to decide upon a specific concentration, but right now I’m thinking either Ancient Classics, or Behavioral Science.

So here’s to a new journey ahead. I know the road won’t be easy, and I do have nerves around the time commitment, the financial implications, and my own capacity to do this. But the nerves are good ones, the right kinds of nerves to have. There’s an uncomfortable degree of ‘stretch’ here, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I look forward with anticipation about the studies ahead, and feel confident that the road ahead over the next few years is going to be a great one.

Here we go!