Educational Administration Pre-Grad Intern Lloyd Scott
When I first read the article about the internship course I almost cried with joy. It spoke to me, "Lloyd this is an opportunity to take all those jumbled ideas you have jotted down on notebook paper and napkins, leather bound and two steps from being feasible, Dr. Cherwitz has created a program especially for you to sit down with someone who has been in your shoes and is ready to help you organize those ideas, and set reasonable tangible goals." I pulled those papers out of the top of my closet, found myself a mentor and we were off. The key part the really struck a chord with me was the use of entrepreneurship and how it was adapted to this social context. Everyone has dreams but as students especially during the undergrad years most of our time is restricted to the class room and the text book. This internship was focused on my specialty: entrepreneurship; exploring, taking risks, developing something new that never before existed. Throughout high school and my first year of college ideas were always banging on the walls of my skull I saw this internship as the chance to finally breakout and make a difference in the community and the world.
I had the astounding luck and pleasure to have Graduate Student-Body President Daniel Spikes to work with as my mentor, advisor and spiritual coach. Daniel is an education major; I got to work in-depth with him in his study of the balance of higher education instruction and family life. Just seeing the level of commitment and involvement he would devote was inspirational to me. His group was only himself three or four other and an instructor but they were really making progress, conducting research, compiling and interpreting data and really creating scholarly reports to be published to alter the way the academic world looks at their subject. It seems like a "duh" but when there's a Harvard graduate sitting next to you telling you to make sure there's batteries in the recorder during your interviews you more so get the feeling that you're on to something then back in the day when we played research scientist and doctor. I leared that a lot from those days is the same, anything you dream, you can test , right or wrong you can play with it. The biggest part of the mission is stepping out and getting started. Along with taking me to his instruction session to see exactly how the he works within academia, even greater so Daniel invited me into his family to observer as to how a man balances the role of life as a leading member in the household, the classroom, and an educational institution. He always made sure I was up on my work. He would take me out with his family and friends, not so much to solely be a friend and companion but to show me the necessity to striving to manage and maintain a balance between keeping a good social and family life as well as making progress and being successful in school and work. That is something I did not and I think many students may not consider or undervalue when thinking about facing another two to three years of coursework after four years of undergraduate work.
For one of the course assignments I interviewed a professor in the education department, because my mentor is in education. I still remember speaking with Dr. Abrams, we recorded the conversation is still available, he was telling me about all his accomplishment is the field of education and motor skills, much for children and the disable. Now understand, I am an Accounting major and I've spent the entire semester learning to balance a ledger book, so I really could not understand the intricate details of the success Dr. Abram had achieved but I did understand that he had completed something that was important to him. He instilled into my the sentiment that a graduate education is the chance you have to become an expert in the one thing or one niche field that you really have some passion for, the facilities are all here at the University of Texas at Austin as well as many other colleges and University. You can do it, it is more than possible that whatever it is you want to build or prove or contribute to society you can because when and if you decide to continue your education to the graduate level there are no more core discovery classes, you know what you want and the recourses become available to put a microscope on the field of choice and no one will distract you or ask you remove your eye from your study until its time to graduate and you get to write a book and let the world know, you know the most about what you love. At that time I was really sold on Grad school. To me it seemed like the other mentors during our meeting a and Dr. Abrams were all telling me, your undergrad years are to outline and organize your goals and dreams, get to a graduate program and you'll have all the time, resources, and guidance one would need to create your own reality.
My original focus was and is the business of music, especially independent and relatively unknown artist and how to move them forward with their individual and collective contributions to society. Because my mentor was in the college of education I did most of my studies with him in the field of education. Nonetheless Daniel encouraged me to pursue my own interest. I had the chance to attend the Sports and Entertainment Mead Conference at the McCombs School of Business. It was inspiring to see real life entrepreneurs that started just like we all do, undergraduate, graduate, professional, with just one simple idea. I even got to hear The Red McCombs is the flesh speak about his entrepreneurial beginnings. Simply put the collective thought was put seconds on seconds, minutes on minutes, hours on hours, days on days, and eventually hopefully you will find yourself doing greater thing that you ever thought possible, it's all about taking that initial leap.
