"I ain't great at finishing Master's degrees..."

21 Sept 2025 · 2 min

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2:08

In this monologue, the speaker explains that they do not excel at completing master’s programs, so they turned to the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) credential to validate their expertise in talent development. They hold a bachelor’s degree in English literature, studied in London, and briefly pursued a master’s in Industrial/Organizational psychology, which deepened their understanding of human behavior in organizations. This psychological knowledge now informs their consulting work assisting people with disabilities in obtaining workplace accommodations. The speaker acknowledges that a master’s degree can still be valuable for acquiring specialized knowledge and outlines a future goal of earning a master’s focused on disability, accessibility, and assistive technology, aiming to explore modifications to physical spaces and emerging tech that aid individuals with disabilities.

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Like I had said before, I ain't great at finishing master's degrees. So the CPTD has really been the validation of my skill and experience in the world of talent development. I do not have a master's degree in education or instructional design to fall back on. I have a bachelor's degree in English literature. I studied books. I went to London and like, that was my undergrad life. I thought I was gonna be an English teacher, so I needed a way to validate my knowledge, my experience to the world, and the CPTD has been that for me. It has been my replacement for the formal master's degree or in any education, but it proves that I, I have the knowledge and I've done the work. If you're looking for specialized knowledge in a certain area like a master's degree would give you, that's absolutely a reason to pursue master's education. So I pursued some of the other master's degrees on my list here. I pursued, uh, Industrial Organizational psychology. I, I did about a year of that as a master's program and really got into human psychology and how, how humans work in organizations. And, you know, a lot of that knowledge I bring with me into the consulting work that I do now for people with disabilities for accommodations. Some of it is psychology and how we treat each other in the workplace and how organizations are structured. So if you're looking for the education that a master's will give you, go My next master's, I know that I will try someday, will be something in the disability or accessibility space. I would love to get more into assistive technology, some of the different modifications we make to physical spaces and the advancements that are coming with technology, how much those help people with disabilities. There's so many places that I would love to explore professional education.