Personal Narrative: My Professional Development Plan

In July 2013 I was struggling with the growth in my career and the direction I wanted to take. I felt my interest fitted in with a degree in Law Enforcement and Correctional

Administration program at the Baltimore City Community College. To make the most of my time at BCCC, I created a Professional Development Plan to organize the experience I wanted to obtain before my graduation in June 2016. The purpose of this paper is to explain my original

Action Planning Worksheet, how it led to my subsequent internship and experiences, and what I have learned.

I came to Baltimore City Community College to develop my skills in leadership and criminal justice education, and to learn more about higher education and how it can best be used

to

The four values are compassion, integrity accountability and purpose. I set long term goals for who I would like to be and how I would perform in the future. I then set manageable goals and my learning outcomes. Based on my curriculum requirements, I determined to engage in internship that would focus on Management and leadership roles.

Managing

I became interested in Management First after the Management Concept course with Professor

Edward Jackson. As part of my course assignment, I shadowed Commissioner Carolyn Atkins, the Commissioner of the department of Pretrial and Detention Services for one semester to learn more about upper level management. Commissioner Atkins and I talked about the importance of training, communication, and the policies of the department are sometimes viewed as a necessary evil by officers, but when used effectively, the benefits, and knowledge obtained in these setting, will decrease duplication of the tactics for the reduction of stress that were non productive in the past, and will allow management to connect each of the individuals personal strengths, to meet stress reducing objectives. In today’s high-performance work

This will allow administration to make better personnel decisions, and make management of a stressful situation more effective, thus reducing stress on themselves, and the officers below them, while in turn demonstrating the team concept. I appreciated her openness and hands on approach to managing and building relationships to prepare staff for success.

Effectively managing your staff to build self-awareness and self-sufficiency empowers them to make decisions based on their value, something I dream of doing professionally.

Now that I am pass my initial reflection on my internship with Management training I am able to put into perspective what I enjoyed about my experience. Each day I was able to meet with different employees to explain the basic of professional growth through education and then talked individually about their interest and how to build your own journey. I also enjoyed being able to transfer my knowledge to new and promising staff. I was a role model and guide for the department and I enjoyed it. I was not trained as an expert in managing, but I was still able to help develop. What I was enjoying was both being able to build a legacy while learning myself.