Why I Want To Pursue A Doctoral Degree

I have always had the assumption that everyone has a purpose in this world and that they each have a story which causes their behavior. I have always tried to be the mentor that helped others and gave a voice to the voiceless. This has created the wave of positive and negative experiences which make up my life and ultimately lead me to pursue my doctoral degree. I began to consider pursuing my doctorate degree after I started working with college and adult students. I found out quickly that I could take my passion for education without addressing any of the areas which annoyed me working in a public school setting. Over the past three and a half years I have taken any kind of job at this level to learn more about how I could help this population.

After attending a national conference, I returned to Scranton excited that I had networked with other local staff developers and test administrators. When I shared this excitement I was told it was important to network because I would never be considered for any higher administrative positions at the current agency. There was no valid reason given but I learned to view it as a training experience for the end goal which was the job after the PhD. A short few months later I was given the ultimatum, my degree or my job. Without any hesitation I made the choice to leave what had become a highly toxic situation and joined a local college staff as a professional tutor. This transition demonstrated that not all bosses would see the class schedule as a distraction. My new supervisors as well as other staff members have encouraged me and listened to me as I worked through the classes and through various potential

I realized that if I was ever lucky to find an administrative position I would want it to be in a nonprofit environment. During this time, I had been reading many instances of successful and some not no successful leaders in nonprofits. Personally, I wanted to know the answers to the questions I had regarding the various types of supervision I experienced in my career. One of the biggest questions I had was why is boss A better at mentoring you to the end goal than boss B? I never viewed leadership as having a variety of styles that would work in the same situation. Also I was interested in finding out why certain bosses would challenge you to perform better while others barely acknowledged you unless you were doing something wrong? I was especially interested in what made a strong nonprofit leader. Is there a set of leadership qualities which made a successful nonprofit leader? At first I thought that I should look at the differences in leadership qualities for leaders in higher education and non-profits. After reading the research and thinking some more about the topic I have decided to look at what leadership skills do nonprofit leaders need to succeed? This would give me the answers to the questions that I