Working at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has taught me more about myself and what is important to me. The university in itself is a prestigious school giving students the chance to to excel in their programs and graduate with degrees. The education ERAU provides their students gives amazing opportunities to work for large well known organizations worldwide such as the Pentagon or NASA. I feel proud to call myself an Embry-Riddle employee and student because they set the bar high and remain at the top of their game. Embry-Riddle values their students, faculty and staff and motivates us to go above and beyond what is expected of us to accomplish our goals while also accomplishing the universities.
Although I enjoy the opportunities ERAU offers I have found that my current role as a Financial Aid Counselor will be short lived. I am a person with a wild imagination and feel the need to use my creativity daily to feel fulfillment. I love to be outside and I love a sense of adventure. Working an 8am to 5pm job sitting inside cooped up in a cubicle with no windows does not satisfy my needs. I feel like every day I live in a kennel and I use a mouse wheel for exercise. Every morning I wake up dreading going to work because I hate the way I am trapped inside away from the outside world. I am stuck sitting at a computer all day emailing and calling faceless students. I never see the people I am helping and this drives me crazy because I am a people person. At ERAU we are a school focused on handling all of our student’s needs and I enjoy this aspect of the job, however they use distant learning modalities in accomplishing these needs. In order for my values to correspond with ERAU’s I would prefer to actually see our students not just treat them as an email address or phone number. I like people and I like interacting with them every day. If they could incorporate Skype in the Financial Aid Department I believe the lack of interaction would be less daunting on me. I feel like placing a face with a name or number would enable me to feel like I am dealing with real live individuals.
Work life balance and family life is an extremely important factor in any career I am in whether it be a waitressing job or my current position. I am a very dedicated family oriented person. I will do whatever it takes to take care of my family, but I will not sacrifice unnecessary time away from them. I feel ERAU also has strong values towards developing a work life and family life balance for students and employees. Every year employees are encouraged to bring their children to ‘family day’. This day is specifically tailored to employees with children. Employees bring their kids to work and attend a full day of activities while ‘working’. It is pretty fun from what I have heard and I plan on attending the next one. Also around Christmas they have a Santa Clause that comes to bring employee’s children, grandchildren, nieces or nephew presents that everyone chips in so that every child receives a present. This type of atmosphere is exactly what I am all about. I feel like the family or ERAU is about being a family and living every day with this mentality. ERAU promotes this balance by also making discounted theme park tickets available to us and we are also given a full week off in December over the Christmas break to use for family time. These values ERAU promotes are exactly aligned with my same values.
ERAU is an organization on the cutting edge of technology and they are all about using technology to become more educated and educate their students. They are very concerned with being the best at everything they engage in and this value is not something I can relate to wholeheartedly. I am not intrigued by technology. I am not interested in adapting the newest software program because I am not really into computers. I would much rather develop a new way to get in touch with our community then learn how to build a robot. Everywhere I turn they are promoting the idea of research and exploration of technology and I just cannot relate. My values are with helping people and solving problems people are facing daily such as communicating better or working as a team.
I value being with people and helping them very much like ERAU does, however I would prefer to do it differently than I am currently practicing. I don’t want to be someone working in a small cubicle alone every day I would rather work in a livelier environment where I see the people I am helping. Embry-Riddle is a place focused on advancing technologically and I am not interested in that aspect. My values are to be mentally challenged not mentally bored and my challenges tend to be specifically with real life problems. I seek adventure and want to explore the world and feel the rush of excitement without compromising my work life balance with my family life. I feel that ERAU is a great place of employment for now, but not forever. I was never someone that was supposed to work inside handling financial aid issues I am supposed to be interacting with people solving problems creatively with flexible hours.
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