New Beginnings

One of my favorite words is Serendipity.  I define it as the pleasant, unexpected surprises of life.  Since I tend to see life in a generally positive frame, I find many serendipitous moments in life.  I expect that to be the case in this course as well.  What interesting new experiences will I have?  Who are the interesting people I will meet during this endeavor?  What challenges will I face?  Will I be successful in meeting them?  I'm seven months into my Masters degree in Cybersecurity.  I haven't had a bad course yet.  Lots of challenges, many new people and lots of interesting experiences.

I chose Project Risk Management as one of my electives because I'm interested in pursuing project management as a career.  I feel I have many of the skills needed to be a PM, but I also recognize weaknesses, first in my skills, but also in my personality.  I tend to be a procrastinator, but I really enjoy going through processes to accomplish things and producing something of value.  The sense of accomplishment is a strong motivator for me.  In my career I've worked as a quality manager while in the Air Force at a calibration laboratory.  There we developed a program to track and reduce the sources of errors in the work we did.  I've also managed a $180,000 renovation project at our church.  In my current job, customer support technician for the IT department at the VA Medical Center here in Omaha, it the projects that I enjoy the most.  Based on these factors, I think it would be a good fit for me.

However, I need training and certification.  I took the IT project management course last semester and enjoyed it.  This is the only other course offered in project management for my degree, but it seems to me one of the really critical areas of project management along with quality management.  They're the easiest to gloss over and press on with the project, but leave the it more prone to cost overruns and lout of control.  I also intend on pursuing the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) at the end of this course.

Given my work history and previous training, I don't see the objectives as too challenging.  I will focus and work hard as I know the skills gained here will apply to any career path that I take.  It will help most if I actually become a project manager.  I look forward to the weeks ahead to learn and improve my skills.