Future Imaging: Career, Family, and Life Planning Essay

Introduction

This paper comes at an interesting point in time, because the results of the recent political election defied my expectations for the American political and social landscape. Quite honestly, I did not believe there was a realistic possibility that the United States would have anything other than white male presidents during my lifetime. Even before the election results were known, one could tell that America was ready for a major change: one party's candidate for president was an African American male, and the other party's candidate was a man described as a maverick by his own party — one who had repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to break with party politics in order to accomplish his goals for America.

As a result, though I have been encouraged to be realistic in this discussion of my future, I must warn the reader that this paper will be optimistic, because I am more optimistic about America than I have been in years. I hope the reader will not find my optimism unrealistic, but will embrace, as I have, the basic foundation of the American Dream — that with enough hard work and effort, anyone can do anything in this country. I think my plans for my life reflect that attitude.

Career Goals and Conflict Resolution at GE

Currently, I am a manager for General Electric (GE). I have been working with GE for 18 years and have been consistently moving up in the company. Unlike some companies, GE has a strong reputation for rewarding and encouraging employee work efforts and innovation, and it strives to promote its own employees rather than recruiting from outside sources. However, like many other large companies, GE expects its management-level employees to have the education necessary to support their positions. Therefore, in order to continue advancing, I determined that I needed to obtain my undergraduate degree. In the next ten years, I will have completed my undergraduate degree and a degree in business management, and I hope to have achieved a position as a business leader in one of GE's divisions.

If I am to attain my desired position as a business leader, I must demonstrate that I have the necessary conflict resolution skills for that role. As a manager, I have come to see that a large part of my job is resolving differences between people. My employees may have conflicts with their coworkers or disputes with company policies and procedures. As a major corporation, GE must carefully protect its financial interests, but it also has an obligation to look out for the health and welfare of its workers. While GE does have an internal procedure in place to help mediate disputes, I would like to push for a program more like the one at Coca-Cola Enterprises, which enjoys tremendous employee support. Because that program was developed and instituted by a non-lawyer with an MBA, I feel I could take similar steps — such as studying forms of alternative dispute resolution — to help shape GE's program and make it an industry leader.

Education as a Non-Traditional Student

Being a non-traditional student has been a challenge. Because I have demands in my life that differ from those encountered by the average student, I have sometimes found that my personal and business life conflict with my life as a student. To resolve this, I previously tried very hard to ensure that my personal and business lives did not interfere with my education, and that my education and personal life did not negatively impact my professional life. The problem with such an approach is that it resulted in my personal life becoming the lowest priority in terms of time allocation, which has not been good for me or for my family and does not reflect my values.

Therefore, I have determined that I can no longer take that approach. Because the conflict between business life, personal life, and education is generally about time — a very limited resource — I have decided that I may need to take longer to graduate than I would ideally like, so that I can devote sufficient time to the other areas of my life. As a result, I envision myself completing my bachelor's and master's degrees within the next ten years, but I am fully prepared for it to take another five years beyond that to complete my master's program. Resources like the adult learner literature affirm that balancing work, family, and schooling requires flexible planning and realistic timelines.