If you could go back in time and give yourself some career advice, what would it be? Amy Dam, now Assistant Director of International Evaluation at University of California-Irvine, was new to the field of international admissions when she attended Summer Institute 2015. She attended with the sole purpose to obtain as much information as she possibly could within the week-long training.
Not only did Dam learn a lot during the week, she became “so impressed by the depth of knowledge Annetta, Robert and the rest of the AACRAO faculty displayed” that they quickly became her “heroes of evaluation." So when she was offered the opportunity to attend an AACRAO institute again, she was pleased to attend the 2019 Winter Institute.
This time, Dam had two goals in mind. Goal number one: learn the basics of calculating transfer credit. Goal number two: recreate the photo that was taken with Robert and Annetta during the 2015 Summer Institute. Both of those goals were accomplished this year.
The one major take away from this story is that professional development has no limits. Although Winter Institute caters towards calculating international transfer credit and Summer Institute towards international admissions, professionals will often attend both institutes at some point in their career.
You may have heard someone new to the field say “I don’t need to learn about admissions because I only calculate transfer credit” or vice versa. But you will see many of those people return to attend another institute because their role has changed or they’ve acquired new responsibilities. There are also several repeat attendees at each institute who come back to learn new information or to receive a refresher.
If your advice to yourself is to participate in as many professional development opportunities as you can, start off by signing up for one of our upcoming workshops. Registration for the 2019 Summer Institute will open on March 5, 2019.