Elaine Kohrman
M.A. Whole Systems Design, 2005
There's no doubt in Elaine Kohrman's mind about the value of her Antioch education.
"If you apply and immerse yourself fully in every aspect of the learning experience, you'll more than pay yourself back in personal gain," she says. "Investing in yourself will leverage your future financial returns.
"Within two years of finishing my master's at Antioch, I obtained a higher paid job and am on a career path I never would have considered prior to my educational experience. Cutting-edge, creative thinking and diverse ways of knowing are what we need now. Invest in being and leading the change, not just following the pack."
"Now I have the integrated personal experience, theoretical understanding and professional skills to apply what I've learned in my career."
She says she tells those who might be considering graduate school how glad she is that she chose Antioch.
"I tell them it was a life-changing experience and that I developed a deep sense of personal growth in a short period of time. I wouldn't have achieved this in a traditional classroom environment. Even now, people ask me where I learned certain skills," says Kohrman.
Now a district ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, she was working full time as a social scientist and economist for the Forest Service when she says she decided to look for a graduate program that integrated a holistic view of the world with innovative, creative and cutting-edge ideas, faculty and students.
She recalls a particularly favorite memory from her Antioch days.
"One of my most vivid memories was a classmate performing as Martin Luther King's mother to illustrate his ideas about leadership. It was awe inspiring, deeply thought provoking and incredibly moving. There wasn't a dry eye in the class. Only at Antioch, I thought, could we get away with this kind of approach! It demonstrated to me the value of experiential learning and sharing this learning with others," she says.
The independent study she did as part of her degree program was quite instructive.
"Independent study gave me an opportunity to develop my own curriculum, reading and study plan. I found myself working much harder to challenge my ideas and at the same time having more freedom to explore possibilities under this approach," she describes.
She also commends the teaching of Whole Systems Design Core Faculty Betsy Geist.
"I was inspired by Betsy Geist and her commitment to bringing forward the voice of early systems thinker Mary Parker Follett. Betsy also was able to articulate her own contributions to systems thinking through storytelling that was very effective and entertaining," she says.
She suggests she has always had a strong sense of the "whole" systems view. As a result of Antioch, she has much more today.
"Now I have the integrated personal experience, theoretical understanding and professional skills to apply what I've learned in my career. I find myself using this knowledge every day and I've also branched out in my ideas to develop new career paths. Everything I do is much more connected now and contributes to my whole 'life,' not just my job," Kohrman says.
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