Thursday, February 3, 2011

Carly O'Brien



Greetings and welcome to my first blog post! My name is Carly O'Brien and I was born and raised in Southern New Jersey. I am one of five children and family is the most important aspect of my life. Sports was a huge part of my life growing up and I played soccer and received an athletic scholarship to Radford University in Virginia. I graduated with a Communications degree in 2000. I moved to California in January of 2002 . I came to California for change, new opportunities and I wanted to be in warm climate where I could surf all year long. I was married in 2007 to my wonderful husband Sean in Encinitas, California overlooking the Pacific Ocean and it was amazing. My daughter's name is Cecilia and she is the light of my life. My sister and brother moved to San Diego shortly after I arrived and I am so grateful to have them close to me.  In my professional career, I  have worked as an Interior Designer, Project Coordinator and Account Manager yet I never felt connected to my work. I am looking forward to pursue a career that invokes passion, motivation and an overall sense of well being. 

I am a little slow with technology, but I do appreciate what technology can bring to the classroom. I am so excited for this class and to become more proficient with the computer. I believe that technology will be our future and it is imperative to remain up to date on all aspects of technology to remain a factor in any career. However, I will say that I am worried about us losing our sense of personal connection through technology. I find that often times people will take the easy way out when it comes to communicating instead of having a face to face interaction. I am actually really happy that in college cellphones were not widely used because I don't think that I would have had the same experiences.  

I think the most important aspect of the mission statement to me is the idea of transforming education. It ties in with my previous paragraph in that the world is ever changing and if you do not move along with these changes (hopefully positive changes) then you will be left behind.  I believe that my education was a bit outdated and did not prepare me for the challenges of the real world. Cultural diversity is so important to highlight in education because otherwise we are acknowledging that the current state of society is just and I do not believe that. Yes, the mission statement was a factor in my decision to pursue my education at California State University, San Marcos. I want to have a liberal and open minded classroom and I believe that Cal State San Marcos will guide me in the way that I believe is true.