Sliding Doors

Sliding Doors: How one decision can change the trajectory of your life

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

by Amy Sweet

Life has a way of creating opportunities, at least when one is open to opportunities as they present themselves. For me, experiential learning is the way I have found opportunity. And truth be told, it has shaped the trajectory of my life. As a result, I have a career that I love and work with students who are beginning their life’s journey. In my current job, I develop relationships with companies and organizations outside of the university and create and expand experiential learning opportunities for students. I get to see how students gain so much from experiences outside the classroom, whether that includes holding a leadership role in a student organization, taking a trip abroad, getting hired as an intern, performing in a music ensemble, doing research, or volunteering on a service project. All of these experiences help build confidence, critical thinking and analytical skills. Students learn to be better communicators and feel part of something bigger than themselves. These are just a few of the crucial outcomes of the transformative experiential learning activities that we create and endorse to get students ready to thrive in the world outside of UGA.

One of the reasons that I am so passionate about my work and experiential learning more broadly is that I, myself, was significantly impacted by an experiential learning fellowship in public service leadership. I moved to New York City from Los Angeles, and through the fellowship I worked in a series of six internships across a variety of business and public sectors over nine months. This experience helped me learn how to be a more effective collaborator, and I gained a better understanding of the interdependence of these sectors and the efficiency with which they could work. For example, we met with leaders in education and those responsible for government budget development and learned how state funding decisions impact public school systems. We toured the underground infrastructure of New York City’s transportation system, from subway tunnels to the Metro-North Railroad transit line, and learned how business investment and private sector partnerships affect sustainability and development.

Through my fellowship experience, I was immersed in different organizational cultures, and each internship offered diverse project responsibilities, work expectations, and supervisor relationships. My fellowship provided an urban experience that tested my confidence. As a result, I gained a better understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. I built a support network of peers and mentors, and it shaped the course of my professional life – a passion for creating impactful experiential learning opportunities for others.

I can look back on that nine-month period and see the personal and professional growth that I experienced through the fellowship. I learned how to ask better questions, facilitate decision making, build group consensus, manage projects more effectively, and communicate my thoughts and ideas to different audiences. Reflecting on my experiences in the fellowship, I took an inventory of the skills I’d developed that would eventually lead me to many fulfilling jobs. Reflection is an integral component in the experiential learning cycle that encourages students to create new ideas, evaluate previously held beliefs or conceptions, and cultivate self-awareness. Ultimately, experiential learning is a powerful tool for unlocking potential. It challenges students to develop a growth mindset and build confidence to know they have the ability to learn something new.

In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, Jonathan Malesic, a college professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, suggested that a “willingness to learn” is a “key to success in college.” A willingness to learn acknowledges that each experience, interaction, course, or job offers something of value. When a student is open to the learning process, they gain new knowledge and experience that can then be applied to their work and in their lives.

Malesic writes that students often see college as one big job training exercise and if a class is not directly related to their major, it may be viewed as “useless.” He makes the point that every course has the potential to expand one’s mind, whether through meeting new people, learning new concepts, or exploring new ways of thinking. The truth is that we can’t always assess the value of something until after we have the chance to reflect on it, so an openness to the experience is a key step in the learning process.

Experiential learning happens throughout one’s life, not just in college. Be curious and follow that curiosity to discover something new: about yourself, your path, your future. Be willing to say, “I don’t know,” and then follow that up with, “but I would like to learn more.” Life is a series of decisions, and you will never know where that next decision will take you, unless you stop waiting for life to happen to you, and take the next right step.

Amy Sweet is the Senior Manager for Business Development in the Office of Experiential Learning  at the University of Georgia. Amy leads the department’s overall business development efforts to create and expand experiential opportunities for students. She began working in the Office of Experiential Learning as a Graduate Assistant during her MPA program. Stay up to date on all of UGA’s Experiential Learning programs at el.uga.edu and follow us on Instagram.