Skills for a Lifetime of Learning

With everything I have gained since I first signed up with Penn Foster College, the most valuable skill I have learned is the ability to learn.  My entire life I’ve known I wanted to work with animals; it has been my dream, my passion, and my desire; however, until a recently I never believed that would be achievable. I was diagnosed with a learning disability when I was very young and struggled through school, failing often, and barely graduating high school on time. I was ridiculed as a student for my educational setbacks. While others seemed to be able to take in knowledge effortlessly, I had to strain to understand even the simplest concepts. All of those things plus self-doubt and fear kept me from perusing higher education for a long time.

After years of dead-end jobs, I reevaluated my dreams and goals and decided to look into online schooling. I believed that if I found a program that allowed me to learn on my own and in my own time, I might just be able to succeed. I first found Penn Foster when looking for ‘go at your own pace” schools and quickly discovered they had a program designed for Veterinary Technicians. Was it all too good to be true? I believed so honestly.

           

I spent weeks writing out question after question about the school and the program, did countless online searches, read blogs, talked to current students, and even reached out to student services. Each question I had come up with was answered promptly and I was offered amazing resources during my research. I decided to give it a try and called one morning and signed up. By mid-afternoon I was taking the entry exams, and by evening I had started my first class!

           

While the fear still overtook me constantly, I was met with a school that has amazing resources for their students. An extensive virtual library, detailed study guides and class details, plans on how to study, and an extremely helpful student body and staff. Even with all those resources I still feared that, like I had in the past, I would fail because I really didn’t know HOW to learn.

One of the first classes I took in my education journey with Penn Foster was Information Literacy, this class was an invaluable resource for me, and I refer to the information from it even to this day. This class and Penn Foster taught me How to Learn. As someone who struggled their entire life with clutching concepts and retaining information, I was blown away with the fact that for the first time in my life I was able to actually learn, comprehend, and retain the information.

The skills I have since learned in my Veterinary Technician Associated Degree Program have propelled me into my dream career, and even though I’m only half way through my program, I have already started working in this field! Each and every lesson has added such amazing insight and enlightenment into a field I have always longed to belong to; but the fact that this amazing school has given me the gift of how to become educated is such a powerful gift in my life.