Note to Self

Dear Melissa,

Here you sit staring at your computer wondering what to write your persuasive essay about. The assignment is simple: you either write an Independent Learning Pursuit (ILP) or a letter persuading someone there is either a problem or a solution to a problem. At first you think an ILP would be best. You could get a much needed start on the ILP you said you would write for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM®) Essentials of Human Resource Professionals Certificate Program that you took last October. Then you think a letter would be a much more fun format. Maybe you could come up with a unique angle. You could write a letter from a mother to her children about the reasons they should clean their room. But, alas, you have no kids for reference, and channeling your mother this early in the morning would be frightening. You could write a letter from yourself to your husband persuading him to save more for retirement as he pays down debt. However, you had that conversation last night, and you seemed to persuade him to meet you at least part way. So, what should you write your persuasive essay about? You should really get down to business writing your ILP.

After all, you spent last Thursday afternoon coming up with a competency statement for your SHRM® Essentials ILP. Your competence statement is quite a good one too. The Foundations of Adult Learning materials helped you write a clear and concise statement using the appropriate verbs to express exactly what type of learning you achieved. To ensure that the statement you wrote for the SHRM® Essentials did not overlap with other competence statements, you reviewed the six competency statements you will fulfill by taking the Professional in Human Resources (PHR®) exam next year. Your review of the objectives listed in the SHRM® Essentials reference book guided you through the process of creating your competence statement, and the exercise provided you with a brief refresher. So, in the end, you have a great competence statement for a Human Resources 101-type course: “Understands the roles and responsibilities of human resource professionals and the key provisions of legislation that effect human resource activities.” Your hard work in creating this concise and descriptive competence statement should not go to waste.

Do not forget your hard work on Thursday included reviewing your grid and the Quarter-by-Quarter Plan that you submitted to your Academic Committee last September. Last summer and again this week, you thoroughly researched the need and impact the ILP would have in completing your degree program. Although it might mean you will have thirteen focus area competencies by graduation, rather than the required twelve, the SHRM® Essentials program was a great introduction to human resources. You have worked in human resources for three years specializing in U.S. immigration, so the program helped you gain a better understanding of the other human resources areas. This more rounded understanding of the human resources areas is essential to successfully completing the PHR® exam and fulfilling six of your twelve required Focus Area competencies.

Like most people you had a general understanding of the different human resource functions, but this program let you delve deeper into the guiding principles of each function and which legislation is relevant to those functions. This deeper understanding of what your co-workers do in their day-to-day tasks gave you a better appreciation of how these areas are interrelated and depend upon each other to recruit, select, and retain “qualified employees who will assist the organization in achieving its goals and objectives” (Society for Human Resource Management, 2007). The SHRM® Essentials program was necessary to prepare you for the big, scary PHR® exam next year. The PHR® exam will test your knowledge in all human resource areas, regardless of whether or not you plan to work in those functions. You needed the SHRM® Essentials introductory program as a pretest to see which areas you should study further. Your review of the SHRM® Essentials program materials, that you will inevitably conclude to write the ILP, will help reinforce the principles and ideas you learned in the course. Writing the ILP is essentially a refresher and will prepare you for the Human Resources Case Studies course, which you hope is offered at DePaul University’s School for New Learning (SNL) in the upcoming quarters. You need to prepare for the PHR® exam and, the SHRM® Essentials program and the writing of the ILP will help reinforce your basic knowledge of human resources.

The time you spend at SNL is not only for gaining more knowledge of your focus area, human resources; it is for completing your decade long goal to finally finish your bachelor’s degree. You began your pursuit of a bachelor’s ten years ago in community college. It took you three and a half years to finish a “two year” physics degree. That seemed to drag on forever, but then you went on to art school for three years. You studied computer animation, and you loved all of the introductory courses. When you reached the advanced classes you realized how a person sitting in front of a computer for eleven to twelve hours a day could come to appreciate smashing the machine with a baseball bat Office Space style (Judge, 1999). Oh, how satisfying that first swing would be. Now at DePaul you spend a little less time in front of the computer each day (unless you have an online course) and, you predict it will take you three more years to finish your “four year” degree. You need to write your ILP for focus area credit, get your Bachelor’s Degree, and get out of school.

Meanwhile, you love school; you love learning. But you have a life and career that you want to move forward with. In fact, now that work is taking up more time, you have less time with family and friends. Writing your ILP and finishing your bachelor’s degree will free up your personal time. Dragging this on more is just tiring. Yes, you are tired now, and you long to make jewelry, decorate cakes, and have fun at cultural events with your husband. However, the guilt you will experience if you do not finish your bachelor’s degree is not worth those distractions. After all, you make jewelry about once a week, and you decorate cakes for special occasions. You also cannot forget that your husband took you to see an opera earlier this month. So it is not like you are missing out on the things you say you would rather be doing. You are just not free to do them every night.

Finish your ILP and you will not have wasted your time or your life. The human resources knowledge you will reinforce by completing your ILP is applicable to your job now and will be needed next year for the PHR® exam. You already cleared the idea of writing an ILP for the SHRM® Essentials program with your Academic Committee; they loved the idea. Then you spent the time in the program and learned many principles and best practices in human resources that you had only a fuzzy idea of what they were. The review of the relevant employment legislation was a valuable and necessary exercise to help you understand why policies are drafted the way they are and make sure you are operating within the law. Least of all, you have written your competency statement for the ILP. That is your ILP’s thesis statement. The hard part is over! Now all you have left is to write your ILP, fulfill a focus area competence, and bring yourself one step closer to graduating.

Did you hear me? Graduation is closer with every competence you complete. No matter how tired you are or how much you want to go do other things they will not make you feel as relieved and empowered as graduating will make you feel. Just think, when you graduate, you can run to the top of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s steps and dance around the top with your fists in the air, just like Rocky (Avildsen, 1976).



Bibliography

Avildsen, J. (Director). (1976). Rocky [Motion Picture]. United States: Chartoff-Winkler Productions.

Judge, M. (Director). (1999). Office Space [Motion Picture]. United States: Twentith Century-Fox Film Corporation.

Society for Human Resource Management. (2007). Introduction. Develop your HR Skills: SHRM Essentials of Human Resource Management Certificate Program. Alexandra, VA: Society for Human Resource Management.

---
This essay is ungraded.