Being a Life-Long Learner

I have always had an interesting relationship with school. I was one of those kids that never turned in completed homework, and if I did, it was never on time (or I never did it myself). Despite this, I always maintained decent grades. The secret was I was a great test-taker and could learn quickly whenever the pressure was on. This dilemma was always so frustrating for myself, and my teachers and parents because it was clear that I could do the work and learn the material but for some reason I just had the hardest time applying myself. This led to extreme apprehension about college because if I was already struggling so much at the high school level how could I ever get into, let alone perform well in, any college. Through most of my young life, I dreamed of being a pilot for the Navy and always wanted to fly the F-18 Super Hornet, but as you could guess this required a TON of classroom time, something I dreaded more than anything. As Senior year drew closer, I was preparing application packets to lots of different schools but my dream was the Naval Academy, I wanted to get a degree in Aerospace Engineering then go fly jets until my body couldn’t take it any more then go into the private sector and build jets for Lockheed or Boeing. I could see my life clear as day but the one thing I couldn’t get past was how to actually get through the schooling to get there. I remember vividly a conversation I had with my pre-calc teacher at the time, for the Naval Academy required a litany of recommendations, one of them being from a math teacher. Here’s the catch: I hated math. I was quite good at it in my AP Physics class so I thought “well that ought to do it” I want to pursue applied mathematics anyway, but my Pre-calc teacher had some powerful thoughts. One Friday I stayed behind after class to give him my recommendation packet and ask the big question, to which he responded “Eric, why on earth do you want to go be a pilot?”. I told him that it was my dream and that I loved physics and said why not just fill out the recommendation. He said “you know Eric pilots have to do a lot of math right? And that applied math you want to do requires at least a basic understanding of calculus, and you but you can barely get through pre-calc, why do you want to subject yourself to four years of some of the most challenging math there is?”. He was right, at the time I was barely passing pre-calc and hated every second of it. Cue the existential spiral. At my High School, as I am sure in many others, every adult in my life asked every day, “where are you going to college, what's your major?”. I think part of me had this big lofty goal because it made the adults in the room ooh and ahh but I had no plan of actually making it there. So, within the month I made the big decision that I would not go to college at all and had found a program in the South Pacific where I could apprentice at the local Dive Shop in pursuit of becoming a SCUBA Instructor. Everyone thought I had lost it, my parents took a lot of convincing, and deep down I was terrified and knew that I was about to make a terrible decision.

SCUBA school was basically unpaid labor, but I was indeed learning. I remember feeling like I was missing out by not being in college and as the years ticked by, I watched all my classmates slowly graduate with their degrees and I knew I had lost. At some point I made the decision that if I wasn’t going to pay for school, I cannot just stop learning. What live my life with nothing more than a high school education? I came across the concept of “Life-long learning” and tried my best to adopt the mentality, and the more I looked around at the world I was living in, the more I realized that so much of what is taught in college is just right there at my fingertips. Did you know you can just BUY books? No one even has to assign the reading to you. Over the years I started to read more and look for lessons in everyday life. Taxes are due? Not really that’s just a free Personal Accounting 101 class. Moving to Bonaire? That’s just a Geography, Social Studies, and Language class all rolled into one. Dish Washing Job? More like a lean processes and intro to culinary class. When you I started looking at my early twenties in the work force like some abstract college education I realized that there were opportunities to learn all around me.

Since I have been at Delta and specifically since I joined the SAFA world it has been more than intimidating working alongside college-educated people, I felt like I had missed out on so much and realized how much I had to learn. I remember asking Mallory Brown once about her experience and how she got to where she was at, and it came up that she too was not a college graduate. I was so impressed and had to know how she did it. She told me that certificates were the answer, after all a degree in the professional world often serves as a piece of paper saying that someone is dedicated and educated, so I just have to do the same. I am currently working on HTML, CSS, and JAVA Script certifications and am constantly on the lookout for more. The biggest thing I have learned about learning, is that itself is a skill that must be trained and developed. As I grew older and looked back on my high school experience, I realized that I was not stupid or even disliked school, it was that I never learned how to learn and that I needed to learn how to learn the right way. Most things that I have learned since high school; Coding, photography, business, guitar, engine repair, skateboarding, cooking, graphic design and more I have either learned from watching someone else or have taught myself through the internet. I like to think I attended “YouTube academy”. I have so much more to learn in this world and I cannot wait to see what is next for me, and upon reflection I feel confident in my decision to avoid college altogether because it has allowed me to pursue so many different passions and interests.

I really believe that being a jack of all trades has helped me learn more about the world than being in college ever could have. When you start to follow many different rabbit holes and have seen people master so many different things you start to recognize the patterns beyond the skill itself. Working in kitchens, for example helped me to better work in a team under high stress and taught me the importance of technique and organization. Photography and graphic design, have led to me to take a closer look at everything, showed me attention to detail, and reignited a passion for creativity I was sure I had lost. Skateboarding has taught me resilience, how vital it is to get back up again, and how addicting the pursuit of perfection can be (and when to stop). My time as a SCUBA Instructor taught me how to teach others, how different people face their fears as well as many late-night philosophies on the meaning of life. These are all things that I have been able to apply here at Delta and beyond.  I feel like I could talk forever about how the many different pursuits I have taken come together to make me who I am and how they are all so much more interconnected than meets the eye, but I will save that for some downtime at the next conference. For now, I will leave you with this advice (take this with a grain of salt coming from the 25-year-old): Learning should never ever stop, if you keep your mind open and look for lessons everywhere you will find those “aha” moments in places you would never expect. So here is to whatever crazy project I will take on next, who knows what I might learn.