Over the past six months, life has moved at such an extraordinary pace with what has seemed to be a barrage of new obstacles and challenges to address and overcome every day, that I’ve ignored the importance of reflection as a mechanism for learning from the experiences as well as a method of appreciation for the journey to (and celebration of) what has been accomplished. Today’s email from New York University, and the fact that I am on PTO in Nepal, gave me exactly the pause I needed to reflect on this milestone.
In May, I will celebrate my graduation from NYU Law + NYU Wagner MS in Health Law and Strategy, my third graduate program. Yes, this time I cheated on my beloved University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Since the first day of class, I’ve been able to apply the academic concepts and real-world tools directly to my work at the Amputee Coalition, from gaining a much deeper understanding of insurance market dynamics to expanding my skills to develop strategic frameworks for healthcare interventions, and, perhaps reluctantly, honing my ability to account for the very real impacts of Moral Hazard in the context of healthcare access.
That said, the most valuable aspect of the program was its teachers, which include both the incredibly accomplished faculty and the impressively talented and diverse cohort of students who have become my colleagues and friends.
As a lifelong learner, I suspect there will be another program in my future at some point. For me education has never been about the degree or the letters behind my name, or even the job offers on the other side of such an endeavor. I love the process, the way it feels when my capacity to think is expanded, when my assumptions are challenged, when I can simultaneously dive more deeply to develop expertise in a particular subject while also broadening my understanding of that subject’s complexities and the interconnectedness of it to other aspects of our world and my existence in it. And sure, I’m always up for a challenge.
