Hi all! Welcome to the wonderful world of Penn GSE! My name is Amanda Colburn and I will be your guide to all things “grad school” during the next 9 months (assuming you continue reading this blog…) Feel free to reach out to me with any questions, comments, or concerns you may have I’ll try to address anything and everything in the blog and I’m 100% accessible by email - just send me a message in the box on the bottom left of this screen!
I just began my journey as a master’s student at Penn GSE this summer (I took two accelerated summer classes) and I absolutely LOVE it! I’m part of the M.S.Ed. Higher Education cohort and it’s hard to believe that even though I just started, I’ll be graduating in May! There are pros and cons to doing a one-year graduate program which I’ll definitely cover in another post soon! I know it’s an influential piece of the program for many people - it was for me!
With my degree in higher ed, I would love to work directly with students as an academic advisor, program manager, admissions officer, or somewhere in student life. Hopefully this year helps me narrow my focus and discover which aspect of higher education I’m really passionate about. Throughout the year I’ll try to give you some insight and reflections about my courses and how I’m thinking about a career in higher education. Again, please contact me if you want to ask a question or share anything!
Another significant piece of my life here in the higher ed program is my Graduate Assistantship, regularly called a “GA”. Basically it’s an internship in the higher ed world where I work for about 20 hours each week. As part of the higher education program we all do a GA, but other programs can accommodate them as well (check with your program manager!). My GA is working in the Admissions and Financial Aid office here at Penn GSE. It’s been a fantastic two weeks so far, and I get to communicate with fantastic prospective students each day, answering questions and facilitating campus visits and meetings!
So that was your introduction to “Amanda-the-Penn-GSE-Student” and you’ll hear a lot more from me this year, but here's a crash course in my biography and who I am so you have some background.
- I was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland (specifically the Towson area if you’re familiar with Baltimore - it’s more suburban, not like what you see if you watch “The Wire”!)
- I just completed my undergraduate degree at Drexel University (2 blocks from Penn in Philadelphia!) I have a B.S. in Teacher Education.
- I have been living in Philly now for 4 years (and LOVE it!), so if you have any questions about visiting or living in the city, please ask! Which brings be to the next point…
- I get really excited about things and I LOVE to share them with people! I also use A LOT of words so I’m sorry if this blog is a lot of reading!
- Some of my (random) favorite things include: American football, specifically the Baltimore Ravens (hometown team and reigning Super Bowl champs!), any kind of coffee beverage, things that are purple, Disney World, pumpkin flavor, jazz and contemporary dance, laughing, exploring a new city, and really good food!
If you made it this far in the post - congratulations! You now know a little bit about me and have some ideas of what my life is like here at Penn. I’m really going to try to keep this blog interesting but informative for all of you future-GSE students (hopefully!) but just to reiterate for the last time - please reach out! I would love to write about your interests and questions and make you as excited as possible about Penn GSE!
Don’t like my blog? Can’t get enough and want to read more? Check out the blogs by other GSE students! Links are on the upper right side of my page!
Have a fantastic day!
- Amanda
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