Boise State’s online Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL) program is preparing the 21st-century workforce for success. For Steven Zeller, the program has enhanced his skills and advanced his career in instructional design.
Video Transcript
I think the OPWL program is really doing a great job of reflecting what’s going on in the business world right now. Technology is a part of almost all collaboration. I actually work full-time as a remote instructional designer. So, most everything I do is going to be online.
So, the OPWL program has really helped fill in some of the gaps that I was missing from my own professional experience as an instructional designer. I hadn’t done a lot of project management. I hadn’t done a lot of change management, some of those fields.
And so they’ve really helped to kind of expand my skillset so that I’m not just viewed as just an instructional designer, but people come to me in my workplace for all sorts of advice and guidance now on some of these other aspects of the business, so that I can be really a mentor and a guide for them in ways that I would have never been able to do prior to being in the OPWL program.
The Boise State faculty, and particularly in the OPWL program has really been fabulous. I couldn’t really ask for better professors. They’ve been incredibly supportive. Honestly, being in the OPWL program as a student has really felt almost like being a part of a family.
The small, close-knit feel of the program has really been outstanding. It builds community.
In many of the classes that I took, I had work groups that I was in where I would meet weekly or more than weekly with those different students. And, you know, you start to you’re all busy professionals.
You all going through life changes, you know, having kids or getting new jobs, all those kinds of different experiences. And you’re sharing those together. And I think one of the, the best things that I learned is how well this program really creates empathy. And I think that really helps to build camaraderie. And the program is doing an excellent job with that.
The flexibility of the OPWL program has been really significant in my development at this stage in my career. I have a wife and three grown kids, and we have a busy life.
And I was just speaking with my wife the other day. We were on a walk, and I told her, you know, I’ve got one semester left, just five credits left. And she was like, “I can’t believe you’re already through with this degree program. It’s gone by so quickly.”
It’s really an awesome thing to see all of us in all these diverse settings come together to create successful products and to be able to leverage that technology in such a way that we are really innovating and we are really changing the way that business is done.
And I think it’s exciting to be a part of that.