My Path From a Broke, Single Mom to a Confident and Successful Instructional Designer

When I turned 30, I literally?cried. I was not even close to working in a satisfying career. Not married. And broke. I could not believe that?I was 30 years old and still had not achieved the goals that I always had just “assumed” would happen for me by that time in my life. It was a pivotal moment.

It was at that point in my life that set myself on a new journey. It was then that I decided that I needed to put my focus back on my career.

I decided that I wasn't going to play that “I don’t have time now because I’m a single mom” card anymore. I quit stating that as part of my identity.

I will never forget making that decision.

In this article, I talk to you about my past, and how I struggled in my 20s, trying to make ends meet, exhausted, and trapped. I really felt like I had no way out.

Thanks to my discovery of instructional design, that's my old way of thinking now...

First, here's a quick background story for you on how far back I go with the evolution of technology.?And the older, I get, the more ancient I feel?...

I have been hooked on computers ever since AOL first came out?around?1995.?As an inquisitive?10-year-old young girl, the mysterious world wide web fascinated me!

By the time I was 13, I was writing?'e-zines' for girls?who joined my email list. I remember spending hours on end trying to get the HTML codes right. But I loved it!

My parents had to start limiting my internet consumption at that point because they were hearing about this new thing where kids were getting "addicted to the internet". Who would have thought...?

By the time I reached high school,?I?taught myself how to code and?was building websites for fun. I joined the yearbook staff in 10th grade, which I also loved!! And looking back, many of the aspects that I learned while on the yearbook staff, relate directly to instructional design.

When I was a senior in high school?I attended a brand new school called the Advanced Technology Center, where all our classes were tech-focused.?

Now here's the part of my life that I will talk about another time. Something happened to me while I was in high school that altered the trajectory of my life...

All that I will say now is that things changed for me after that.

When it was time to go to college, I decided to attend Florida State University and moved to Tallahassee, which is about four hours away from my hometown.

At that point in my life, I had steered away from the idea of focusing on a career in technology.

Instead, I found a fascination for psychology and child development.?At the time I thought I would?get my Ph.D. in clinical psych and become?a child psychologist.

However, when I graduated with my bachelor’s degree from Florida State University in December 2007, I just so happened to become pregnant with my daughter, Willa, right after I graduated.

It was at that time in my life, at 22 years old, that I decided I should take some time off of school. For my daughter. Can anyone relate to this?

I was about to go on and get my doctorate degree. I was studying for the GRE at the time. But I got pregnant. So what did I do? I put school on hold.?I put my dreams on hold.

During that time, I was working at a child development center. I would get there at 7am and leave at 6pm. Some of those kids were right there with me all day long from 7 to 6. I saw those kids more than their own parents did. I did not want to be that parent to my daughter.

But thankfully, the child development center I was at offered me a salary of $23,000, plus benefits, including bringing my daughter with me!

I felt truly blessed and thought that was the perfect situation for me at the time.

However, that was the year 2008. We all know what happened in 2008. The stock market crashed. All of the sudden, my $23k turned into $18k. But of course, I still took the job.

This worked great for a few years, but?the money was just not enough.

The child development center was a non-profit, and the owner passed away. They had some budget cuts, and I had to waitress a few nights a week to afford all of my bills.

I was overworked. And underpaid. I was exhausted. I was overwhelmed. I was depressed. I saw no way out.

When I turned 30, I literally?cried. It was a hugely?pivotal moment?in my life. I was not even close to working in a satisfying career. Not married. And broke. I could not believe that?I was 30 years old and still had not achieved these goals that I always had just “assumed” would happen for me by that time in my life.

It was then that I set myself on a new journey.?The things I learned from my dad as a child were way too powerful to be ignored.?All the advice, support, motivation, and dreams he continuously?drilled?into my head were?never going to erase away from my memory.

So I made the decision to move back “home”, where I grew up. Where my entire family still lived. My sisters, my mom, my grandparents, my aunts, and my uncles, are all still in my hometown in Central Florida. It only made sense to me that Willa and I make the move.

It was then that I decided that I needed to put my focus back on my career.

I decided that I would not play that “I don’t have time now because I’m a single mom” card anymore.

I will never forget making that decision. I quit stating that as part of my identity.

I wanted to show my daughter exactly?what my dad showed me?throughout my childhood. That I could?live my dreams?and do whatever I wanted to do in life. So I decided to go back to teaching.

And even though I loved my job as a lead teacher at the child development center, I knew that I was not going to make it on that kind of salary.

So I decided to return to school and get my elementary teaching degree.

Because I already had my bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in child development, I was able to start teaching for the school system pretty much right away!

At first, I was SOO excited! I thought that my dreams were finally coming true! Willa was starting elementary school. I could get a job at an elementary school, and she could go to school with me!

I thought that I was going to be the best teacher and could not wait. But…?my dreams were soon crushed. If you’re a teacher, I’m sure that you can relate….

I felt like a deer facing headlights.?I was so overwhelmed, honestly. And all the other teachers and staff around me were so unhappy! They all kept telling me all of these horrible things about being a teacher, and I could not believe it, but it was true!

So… there I was…?Once again, working a miserable job. But this time I was not going to continue sucking up all those bad feelings…

That’s when I started looking into?graduate?degree programs.?At the time, I thought that I would get a master’s degree and maybe become an administrator or a guidance counselor since I had my bachelor’s degree in psychology.

So I enrolled in the master’s degree program in Education Technology at the University of Central Florida.

From my background in technology (yearbook staff, web design, writing newsletter zine emails in middle school), I thought that would be the perfect fit for me.

And that was when I discovered…. Instructional design!?I took an online learning class with a teacher, who was also the Director of the Learning Tech department at UCF, Dr. Glenda Gunter. It was then that I quickly learned about the field of instructional design.

In my first semester at UCF, I was full-fledged and focused on the program, and?my work was noticed by Dr. Gunter.?She contacted me multiple times asking if she could use my work as an example for her students.

I quickly switched to a master's degree focused on instructional design. And at the end of my studies, Dr. Gunter asked me to work for her on some of the courses in the Ed Tech program! Of course, I said yes!

I ended up graduating on the President's list and?with my master’s degree in eLearning and instructional design, in addition to a certificate in educational technology.

After completing my studies, Dr. Gunter hired me to redevelop and revise some of her graduate-level online courses. I truly enjoyed the instructional design process, especially in an adult educational setting.

I also learned after completing my graduate degree that you don't even have to have an instructional design degree to become an instructional designer!

And the majority of instructional designers had degrees in all sorts of backgrounds, outside of the instructional design industry!

So that is what led me to create the eLearning and Instructional Design for Beginners Community.

I created the community for?people who want to?quickly?and?effectively transition to a career in?instructional design, but don’t have an educational background in the industry.?

In 2019, I started the eLearning & Instructional Design for Beginners Community with all the information I had learned about becoming an instructional designer.

Everything that I learned while attaining my graduate degree, as well as my positions working as a contract freelance instructional designer, was placed into an organized layout, called the HARPER Method.

Over the last three years, hundreds of members have gone through the program.

I have been making iteration after iteration, trying to make it the best community for new and aspiring instructional designers.

In the three years since starting the community, I have been?researching and gathering information on how to help people become instructional designers faster and easier.

Especially with the job market industry right now, I find it my responsibility to figure out the pitfalls that are preventing people from?finding the careers that bring them both the finances and happiness they deserve, want, and need.?

The community was launched back in November 2019 and here's what some of the members have been saying:

Since opening Black Friday 2019, my plan has been to create a community filled with?the most?comprehensive, practical training and resources on?all aspects?of planning, building, running, and growing a successful?instructional design career.

And this year, more specifically,?after learning what people needed the most help with...

Stay tuned tomorrow to learn about all the amazing new benefits and features that have been added to eLearning and Instructional Design for Beginners PLUS our once-a-year Black Friday discounts! I have lots planned coming your way!

Here's a sneak peek of what's to come starting tomorrow, November 24th, 2022...