My Many Careers & Circuitous Career Path

Diana K. Kelly, Ph.D.

 

For many years, futurists have predicted that we’ll have seven different careers in our lifetime – not jobs, but careers.  Maybe I’m ahead of my time, but I’ve already gone beyond seven careers, and I’m not anywhere near retirement.  The old notion of preparing for one career (in college), then doing that career for the rest of your life is quaint – something from my father’s era.  Today’s careers are fluid, flexible, and varied.  The bad news is that there is less job security.  The good news is that we won’t get bored!  We’ll need to keep learning new things throughout our lives – both to enhance our current professional skills and to prepare for potential new careers.

 

So here is the story of my circuitous career path.  By “circuitous” I mean that it was not really planned out, but one thing sort of led to another.  It has not been a straight path in one field, but a path that led in many directions in different career fields.  My career path has had many twists and turns, and even loops back into previous careers.  I’ll start by describing what I wanted to be when I grew up -- where I thought I might be going.  Then I’ll show you how combining work with college helped me to get my career path off to a good start.  Next, you’ll see how one career led to the next, and the next, and the next.  Finally, you’ll see some of the common threads running through the careers I’ve had so far.

 

Before I get started on my career journey, I must say something about Marymount International School.  Although I was only there for one year in 8^th grade, my experience at Marymount was the best learning experience in all of my schooling until I got to graduate school.  I learned at a young age at Marymount how to be an independent thinker, how to meet very high expectations, and how to learn – all invaluable tools for my career.  Thank you, Marymount!

 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I’m still trying to figure this one out.  However, when I was young, I thought I knew.  It just depended on when you asked me.  For instance, when I was 6 years old, I was so excited to be in school that every day I’d come home and “teach” my younger sister, repeating everything that we had done in school that day.  Maybe I would be a teacher when I grew up.

 

When I was eight, I started taking ice-skating lessons and decided I wanted to be an ice skater when I grew up.  Then when I was ten, I got a little transistor radio for Christmas and spent all of my free time listening to the radio – that’s when I said “If I were a boy, I’d want to be on the radio when I grow up.”  At that time all of the radio DJs were men . . .

 

In 1967 my dad’s company transferred him to London, and we were lucky enough to live there for a year.  While we were in London we did a lot of travelling, and I admired the “stewardesses”  on our flights – so I decided that was what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Travelling was fun – and I figured it would be a good career because the stewardesses got to travel a lot.  While at Marymount, I admired Miss Fiona Small, our Physical Education teacher.  I was pretty good at sports, so I thought it would be nice to be a PE teacher.  That idea later faded when I found out how much science was required, and I wasn’t very good in science classes.

Back in California in high school, another career I considered and ruled out was nursing.  My good friend planned to be a nurse and volunteered at a local hospital.  She invited me along to see the big nursing school at the University of Southern California.  It looked like a great career – until I started thinking about the science, the needles, the blood, etc.  Not for me.

 

Combining College and Work

When it was time to go to college, I went back to the idea of being a flight attendant for an airline and because you had to be 21 years old to apply for a job, I figured I’d go to college for two years. So I enrolled as an English major at Fullerton College, a two-year community college near my home.  Why English?  Well, I enjoyed reading, and had always been pretty good at writing, so I picked English because I figured I’d enjoy it.  As an English major, I could also take foreign languages, to better prepare myself for a future career in the airlines.  In addition to studying English literature and writing, I also studied German and Spanish.  I graduated from Fullerton College with an Associate Arts degree in English in 1974.

However, during those two years of college, my career goals shifted – and this shift had nothing to do with my experiences in college.  Right after I started college, I got a part-time job on weekends, working at a local amusement park called “Knott’s Berry Farm.”  A friend was working there as a costumed “Pufnstuf” character, greeting children outside the theater, and she asked me if I wanted to work with her.  They had one team of three characters and were hiring another team of three.  So I went for my very first job interview about a month after starting college, and was hired for my first job on my 18^th birthday!   This was a fun job, working with fun people, in a fun environment – more like going out to play on the weekends rather than going to “work.” 

Work also meant money. I was fortunate that my parents were able and willing to support me while I was going through college, as long as I lived at home and attended the local public colleges.  That was fine with me – that’s where most of my friends were going to college, too.  Because I was working part-time and didn’t have to pay for college, I was able to save my money to travel back to England for short vacations in January between college semesters, when the airfares were low.  While I was on those long flights from Los Angeles to London, I carefully watched the flight attendants and decided that was not what I wanted to do as a career.  It didn’t seem as glamorous as I’d originally thought, watching as they worked so hard during the flight.  I’d have to find another way to do some travelling.

 

My first part-time job at Knott’s changed after a few months, so that I became a costumed character working by myself, greeting children at the main entrance gate.  After about a year in the costume, it wasn’t so much fun anymore. It was hot in that big costume and the children could be nasty, punching the costume, somehow not realizing that a person was inside!   In the summers, one day a week (when the costume was being cleaned), I got out of the big costume and dressed up as “Annie Oakley,” working with the gunfighters  in the Old Western part of Knott’s Berry Farm called “Ghost Town.”  We did little impromptu skits in the streets of Ghost Town and I helped with crowd control when they did their stunt fights.  Now that was FUN!  But this was only one day a week – I had to figure out a way to do this job all the time and get out of that big hot costume. 

Then a chance presented itself.  When the announcer for Country Music shows in the outdoor amphitheater (“Wagon Camp”) left, I asked my supervisor if he would let me try to do it.  My dressing room was in “Wagon Camp,” and I’d seen the announcer introduce the country music shows many times, so I knew what to do.  My supervisor was very nice and allowed me to try it. The first few times, I was terrible!  But my supervisor was patient and gave me some tips to help me improve.  It was also lucky for me that he was desperate - he didn’t have anyone else to do the announcing!  So this was how I got myself out of the hot costume and into the “Annie Oakley” role.  At age 19,dressed as Annie Oakley, I would stride out confidently on stage in front of an audience of 700 people to introduce a well-known country group.  In between shows, I worked with the gunfighters on the streets of Ghost Town, doing our little skits and just hanging out.  This was the most FUN job I’ve ever had!  At two dollars an hour, I wasn’t doing it for the money – in fact, if I had the money, I would have paid them to do this job.

Because by this time I had decided against a career as a flight attendant and had become involved in entertainment through my part-time job at Knott’s Berry Farm, I transferred to California State University Fullerton as a “Theater” major.  I was well aware of my shortcomings as an announcer, and decided to take a “Radio and TV Announcing” class in the Theater department  to improve my announcing skills.  That announcing class really stimulated my interest in radio broadcasting, so I changed majors again from “Theater” to “Communications” to focus on broadcasting. But there was a problem – this university focused mainly on television, and I was really interested in radio. 

So while I was attending the university, I went back to Fullerton College to take radio broadcasting classes there.  They had (and still have) one of the very best college radio broadcasting programs, complete with an on-air radio station where the advanced students get experience on the air in a professional environment. I loved it!    While I improved my announcing skills for my part-time job at Knott’s, I had found my career direction at last!  It’s funny that what I wanted to do at age ten “if I were a boy” was the career I ended up pursuing after college.

Meanwhile, back at Knott’s Berry Farm I continued announcing in the Wagon Camp on weekends and in the summer.  I also got involved in the Knott’s Training Department as a tour guide for new employee orientations, and I really enjoyed it.  The Training Director asked me to rewrite some of the training scripts in a more conversational style, and I was happy to put my broadcast writing skills to work. I liked the variety of doing different things, and at Knott’s I was able to work my way into new areas.

 

But a new movement was brewing in the mid-1970’s – DISCO!  One of my fellow radio students at Fullerton College was working as a Disco DJ at a local club and asked me if I’d like to do some DJ work in another place where he had been working (he didn’t want to work at both places).  I figured it was a good opportunity to develop my DJ skills for radio work, so I started doing DJ work some evenings and weekends  - in addition to going to two colleges and working part-time at Knott’s.  I was a busy girl!

One DJ job led to another and another.  At Knott’s I recommended that they start a new Disco dance area for the evenings, especially on weekends and in the summertime. Because I had the DJ experience, I started the first Disco dance area and was the first DJ at Knott’s in 1976.  Over time this evolved into a very popular dance area, and I eventually stopped doing the announcing work in Wagon Camp.  I continued doing DJ work at Knott’s and several other places until I found my first full-time job in a radio station in May 1977.

 

While my new career as a DJ was starting, I finished college and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications in January 1977.  I also gained invaluable skills in broadcasting from my radio classes at Fullerton College.  As it turned out, those skills from Fullerton College were initially much more important in obtaining my first radio job than my college degree.

 

Transition to a Broadcasting Career

Radio broadcasting at last!  I was in the career I really wanted, working as an on-air disc jockey 7pm – midnight six days a week at a small radio station in central California, KONG.  I also read the news and produced local radio commercials.  The salary was very low, but from my radio classes at Fullerton College I knew that this was how you “paid your dues” to get a start in a radio career.  While working in this radio station in a small market, I watched the job advertisements for radio positions in larger markets.  My goal was to get back to southern California where there were many radio stations in the Los Angeles area – but this was a very competitive job market. 

After eight months, I found a part-time job at KWIZ, a major market radio station in Santa Ana, near Los Angeles, and I happily moved back to Orange County in 1978 and started working on the air.  Soon this became a full-time on-air replacement position because one of the full-time announcers had become very ill. 

 

                                          Diana with Jose Feliciano and another DJ, Patty Martinez

A few months later I was recommended for a full-time position as the station’s Music Director, assisting the Program Director who was located 500 miles away at our sister station in northern California.  What a great opportunity!  I worked on the air one shift each week on Saturday nights and worked full-time as the Music Director Monday – Friday.

Transition to a Teaching Career

 While working as Music Director, my former instructors at Fullerton College invited me back as a “guest lecturer” in their radio classes.  They were proud of my success and wanted me to talk with the current students about what it was like to work in radio and how to prepare for a radio career.  I was honored to be invited back to the radio classes and really enjoyed having a captive audience of students who were actually interested in what I had to say about radio.  Then my former instructors at Fullerton College asked me if I could teach one evening class in Spring 1980:  “Introduction to Broadcasting.”  I said I’d be happy to teach the class based on my own professional experience in radio – but I really didn’t know how to teach!  One of the full-time teachers said he’d be happy to meet with me once a week to help me prepare for my class – and that’s how I learned how to teach.  He showed me how to prepare a syllabus for the class, how to organize my class sessions, and how to get the students involved in their learning.  He was a great mentor teacher as I was getting started.

I really enjoyed teaching one evening class that first semester.  It was great to have the chance to talk with students who were interested in a career in broadcasting.  I was able to bring my “real life” radio experience to the classroom for my students, and they seemed to appreciate that.  At the end of the semester I learned that one of the older radio instructors was retiring, and I was encouraged to apply for the full-time teaching position.  Although I loved working in radio, I had a taste of teaching and decided I’d rather move in that direction.  I was very fortunate to be selected for this full-time teaching position at Fullerton College, and I started on this new career path in Fall 1980.  “Fortunate” because it was the first time I’d applied for a full-time teaching position, and it is very competitive to get a full-time tenure-track teaching position.  Most part-time faculty apply for many positions for several years before they are selected for a full-time position.

As a full-time faculty member in a California community college you are expected to teach five classes each semester.  This includes developing the syllabus for the semester, developing teaching materials and activities for students, developing projects and tests, grading student work.  In addition to the teaching responsibilities, faculty are expected to develop or revise curriculum and participate in college committees.  I developed several new courses to add to the existing radio curriculum, and I worked with other faculty to make revisions and updates to the existing courses.  I also developed a “Broadcasting in Britain” summer tour for our radio students, so they would learn about radio and TV in Britain, as a contrast to American media.

During the first two years I taught full-time in the radio broadcasting program, I also kept working on the air at KWIZ on the weekends – just to keep current in radio.  I joined the “Broadcast Education Association” and went with other broadcasting faculty to the annual meetings of this group which took place at the National Association of Broadcasters’ Convention – a huge exhibit of all of the latest trends and equipment for broadcasting.  By attending this important convention we were able to bring back all of the latest information for our classes.

 

Community colleges normally provide salary incentives to faculty members who take additional college and graduate-level coursework, to encourage on-going professional development.  So I took a few classes at Cal State University Fullerton in Education in order to learn more about teaching and learning, and I took classes in Mass Communication to learn about various aspects of the media that I hadn’t studied previously.

 After two years of teaching full-time, I decided to take a one-year unpaid leave of absence to pursue my dream of returning to England.  I tried to get work in radio in England, but work permits were problematic.  So I ended up doing some consulting work for a radio station in Wolverhampton and enjoyed learning more about the inner workings of a commercial radio station in the UK. 

When I returned to teaching, I decided that I really wanted to keep on learning new things to keep my radio teaching fresh and interesting, so I started participating in workshops to learn more about how to teach effectively.  One of the workshops I attended was an intensive week-long program, called “Great Teachers” in which faculty members from different community colleges learned from each other about “what works” in teaching.  It really made me think about how I might teach my students more effectively – and I realized how much I didn’t know about teaching!

Combining Work and Learning - again

My interest in teaching and learning led me to look for a graduate-level program where I could earn a Master’s degree in education with a focus on higher education and adult learning.  I found a fantastic program at the Claremont Graduate University, about a 45 minute drive from where I was teaching at Fullerton College.  So while I was working full-time as a faculty member at Fullerton College, in 1987 I started attending graduate school part-time at Claremont, taking just one graduate seminar each semester and one in the summer.  All of the other graduate students in the Higher Education program were also working full-time in other colleges, too, so we all brought a wealth of experience to our seminar discussions.  

For my Master’s degree I took a sabbatical so I could complete my research and Master’s thesis.  I finished my Master’s degree successfully in 1990 and decided that I was enjoying the learning process so much that I just kept on going to earn my Doctorate.  I completed the coursework, my four qualifying exams, my research and dissertation, and finished my doctorate in 1993.

 While I was working on my graduate degrees, my work changed again – because of the influence of what I was learning.  Some new statewide funding created new Staff Development programs at all of the California Community Colleges, and I was selected to be the first Staff Development Coordinator at Fullerton College.  This meant that I was teaching fewer radio classes, but I was coordinating teaching and learning workshops for faculty – based on what I was learning in my graduate work at Claremont.  Once again, learning influenced my work!  I held this position for two years from 1988-1990.  In addition, through my work in Staff Development, I also applied for (and received) several grants for teaching and learning projects. My doctoral dissertation grew out of one of the grant projects. 

Transition from Teaching to College Administration

As I was completing my doctorate, I started to look for new challenges – new opportunities in leadership roles in community colleges.  As Staff Development Coordinator, I enjoyed being in a leadership role and providing continuing professional development for faculty.  My greatest interest was in adult learning, and I was very fortunate to find a position as “Director of Continuing Education” at a community college district in San Diego County.  My husband had also found a new position as a Dean at another San Diego community college, so we moved to San Diego in 1993/94. 

Here are the administrative roles I held from 1994 – 2013:

n  1994-1999 – Associate Dean of Continuing Education, Cuyamaca College, El Cajon, Calif.

n  1999-2003 – Head of Lifelong Learning, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland

n  2003-2004 – Director of CAPSL, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

n  2004-2006 – Lecturer/Consultant – M.A. Program in Academic Development, City University, London

n  2007-2008 – Dean of Liberal Arts, Miramar College, San Diego

n  2009-2013 – Staff Development Coordinator, Southwestern College, Chula Vista

What Happened Next??

In 2013 I retired from full-time work in education, joining my husband who had retired two years earlier.  We enjoyed having the freedom to travel, and took some trips by train to various parts of the United States we hadn’t visited before.

 

Volunteering for special events became another outside interest.  My husband and I volunteered for the Palm Springs Film Festival and the BNP Paribas Tennis Tournament for many years, and we have also volunteered for baseball Spring Training in Arizona.  It’s rewarding to volunteer for these events that give back to the local community, but it’s also fun to be involved in these exciting events.

 

Back to my broadcasting roots, I’ve been volunteering as a judge for the Broadcast Education Association, judging academic papers and audio productions.  It’s been fun to learn what’s going on today in the world of media and broadcasting and to make a small contribution to the education of future broadcasters.

While I was still working full-time, I developed new interests in my spare time. One major interest was genealogy research. Around 1999 my grandad encouraged me to get involved in family history research – to carry on all of the research he’d been doing on our family tree.  So I got off to a head start with his great work, and have continued researching our family over the years.  Now I also help others to get their family trees started.

Bottom line – even though my working career is now over, it’s great to keep on learning new things, making contributions by volunteering,  and doing things I enjoy!

 

January 13, 2021