My Story - From Failing Out of High School to Instructional Designer at MIT

Oct 8

Oct 8 My Story - From Failing Out of High School to Instructional Designer at MIT

Instructional Design, Online Higher Education

“Times change and people change with them.” These are lyrics from a song I used to listen to on repeat back in high school. I didn’t realize that they would become so relevant to me 16 years later. You see the times have changed, and I have absolutely changed with them. I’m a Program Manager for MIT and teach online part-time, along with having a blog, a podcast, and an institute focused on professional development for instructional designers. All of these things are mind boggling to mention as I’m a high school flunk out. What was once a loathing for school slowly turned into a passion for online higher education.

Why am I telling you all of these personal things?

I’ve been having more and more conversations with bright, intelligent, kind, and capable people, who can’t stop doubting themselves. They wonder if they’re good enough. The fear of imposter syndrome has crept in and refuses to let go. I’ve been there. I’ve gone through this. I understand the pain, the anger, and the frustration. What I want to share with you is my story. I don’t know who needs to hear this or is reading this, but I hope it inspires you, motivates, and just maybe gives you a push in the right direction.

Let’s go back in time to 2004. The Luke Hobson back then is definitely not the same one you know now. It was my junior year in a small private high school in Manchester, NH. The school had a reputation for being the best, academically speaking, with almost 100% of their graduates moving on to college. They expected a high-level engagement from their students, demanded excellence, and wanted to know when you have been accepted to the college of your dreams. That spelled out trouble for me as I hated all of my classes. I sat through every single one wondering why on earth I was wasting time and money studying about material that would never help me in the real-world. Asking about how the content was going to be useful in the future just lead to arguments. This irritated feeling made me dread going to school and I felt an extra sense of pressure knowing that this education was costing my parents quite a bit of money.

My grades started to fall. Eventually, I stopped caring about everything and I was put on academic probation, meaning I had a few more strikes and then, I was out. This forced me to attend summer school, not once, but twice. As you can probably guess, this didn’t improve anything. The root of my problem wasn’t that I lacked the ability to do the work, it was that I failed to see the connection to how this education would serve me on my next steps in life. At this point, I completely quit trying, failed the probation period, and then faced the reality that I wasn’t allowed back. Luckily, summer school gave me enough credits to move on to my senior year, but not with that same school. So, here I was a soon to be senior having to change schools his final year of high school.

It was terrifying.

I then transferred to a public high school that had 1,000 students and it felt like it was the most massive building I’ve ever been in before. Fortunately for me, I didn’t feel alone. Some friends I worked with attended the same school and I anxiously followed them around, asking them to guide me through the unknown hallways. This school had one big unexpected surprise for me: music classes. I always wanted to be a musician and these courses answered my questions of how I was going to apply the content to my future. My ideal college, if I was forced to pick one, would’ve been Berklee College of Music. I had a friend who made a living playing his guitar, and 18-year-old Luke thought that he had the greatest gig in the world. I enrolled in every single music class I could take while completing my standard course requirements.

Want to take a guess what happened?

Music saved me. I graduated with straight A’s for the first time in my life and enjoyed learning again. Shocker. While this is going far back in my life, I wanted you to know about this moment in time. I’ve heard a few misconceptions out there that I must be a genius because I’m from MIT. Every time I hear this, I think back to the kid who failed out of high school. For all of you teachers and educators out there who refuse to give up on a student, thank you. One day, they might work for MIT.

My college experience was interesting to say the least. Berklee refused to accept me for my pitiful grades and I can’t really blame them. This became a continuous trend as every school I applied for essentially said the same thing. While my senior year gave the admissions office some hope that I could do well, it couldn’t make up for the three years of abysmal grades. Every school turned me down besides one: Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). While they didn’t offer a music program, I decided to stay in the arts and pursue a degree in graphic design. My hope was that I could design posters and artwork for bands to still feel connected to the music scene.

My problem was that I couldn’t get the hang of design. I didn’t have an eye at all for art and my drawing talents could be compared to early cave paintings. I flopped my way through two years of classes, and then was determine to change my major. Then, one professor in the graphic design department, who I never met before, saw my work, and mentioned I must be the best in my class. After giving him a total blank stare, he told me to keep on pursuing design as I had a real talent for it. My confidence was starting to build. I kept on plugging away, and graduated with honors, a feat that my parents are still in disbelief of. My graduation experience while exciting also met the fate of the job market being at an all-time low. In anticipation of the job market not turning around anytime soon, I decided to pursue a master’s degree.

This is when things start to get interesting.

While attending evening classes and working during the day, I began to question what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t have a purpose and was just going through the motions until a job posting caught my eye as an academic advisor for SNHU. I had an amazing partnership with my former academic advisor and she had a significant impact on guiding me throughout my degree. I was thinking if I could do the same for students, this could be the purpose I was looking for. What I didn’t realize was that this job was going to completely change my life.

SNHU’s online programs began to boom and before long, it was impossible to watch TV or YouTube without seeing an ad for SNHU somewhere in there. Every single term, the university grew by the thousands, and my caseload grew with it. Before long, I was working with hundreds of students each term, which led to speaking with thousands of students over the years. It was the most rewarding experience to be able to call and welcome them to the university. These students were so excited and eager to learn. This job provided many unique opportunities to understand the struggles of online adult students, something I wasn’t aware of before. It became my role to support them through whatever obstacle they faced. Sometimes, this meant discussing time management strategies and studying techniques. Other times, it meant walking them through the courses and software, becoming some hybrid form of a coach, navigator, and tutor. Whatever issue they faced, we solved it together. Being an academic advisor made me understand the online student experience.

This passion for the student experience led me to applying for a doctoral program in educational leadership. I was obsessed with trying to find a better way to serve my students and I knew the program could take me to that next level. At this time, I had friends at SNHU who were instructional designers. I proactively connected with as many of them as I could over coffee chats and lunch outings to ask about their jobs and what is was like to be responsible for someone’s learning. I became hooked on the idea of becoming an ID. I imagined that my background with supporting students and knowing online courses like the back of my hand would help me land this role. However, this job wasn’t in the cards yet.

I ended up going through this endless cycle of interviewing to be an ID. I would always make it past the first round of interviews, but then get the denial email after the second or third rounds. After several (7, I think…) failed interviews with the academic team, I received some strong feedback about how I was approaching learning from a supportive/customer service mindset, and not from a design perspective. I really didn’t understand this feedback until years later. Luckily for me, there was another department at SNHU who was looking for someone to have this supportive mindset. My background with graphic design and customer service paved the way for a role that had never existed before. I became responsible for developing the resources for the online writing center, peer tutoring center, and the online learning communities.

I was fortunate enough to work under an amazing director. She was extremely passionate about learning and was pursuing her doctorate in education too. Our one-on-ones became massive nerd sessions talking about learning from Vygotsky's Cognitive Development Theory to what skills 21st century learners will need. Without realizing it, every conversation we had made me learn more about the learning process. Conveniently, I was approaching my third year in my doctoral program and I applied everything I learned into preparing for comps. If you are unfamiliar with that term, comps are oral and written exams to demonstrate what you have learned in specific subjects pertaining to the program like research, leadership, sociocultural issues, etc.

I passed my comps and at this point in time, I was ready to move on to a new challenge.

I asked around for advice from a few colleagues on what I should do next. The same piece of advice kept coming up: move on to another university to continue growing. While this was confusing at first, I realized what they meant. All I had known was one university and having multiple perspectives would be more valuable in the long run. So, it was time to step out of my comfort zone.

I started to look on LinkedIn for instructional design jobs, but expanded the search to the Boston area, not just New Hampshire. My wife made a similar transition in her career where she saw more opportunities in Boston for her line of work, and it made sense for me as well with some of the most well-known universities being in the Boston area. One role caught my eye as an instructional designer for Northeastern University. The university had an incredible reputation and I figured that if I was to transition to another role in higher education, Northeastern could be a great fit. The job posting sounded not only exciting, but challenging. I knew that if I could land this job, I would grow as a designer.

I submitted my application with my LinkedIn profile and to my surprise, I had a connection that worked there. Remember when I mentioned how I would network with as many instructional designers as I could at SNHU? One of them transitioned to NU and was working as a senior ID in the department I applied for. We had lost touch over the years, but I found her number and asked her if she knew anything about this job. To my utter amazement, the job I was looking into would report directly to her team. I knew that this was my chance and that I had to prepare for this interview like my life depended upon it.

After Googling typical instructional design interview questions and writing down from memory any of the questions from my past interviews, I practiced answering all of them. I created a portfolio, diagrams, and worksheets to bring with me just in case they wanted anything. Whatever they were looking for, I was going to have it on hand and be ready. In an unbelievable stroke of luck, the room I was being interviewed in had a white board. After they asked me the first question, I went right to the whiteboard and started mapping out my answers and showing my lines of thinking. Everything I learned over the last 5 years were drawn on that whiteboard.

A few days later, I got the job.

I quickly gained two mentors at Northeastern. Every meeting I had with them blew my mind as I learned just how little I really knew about instructional design. I was bitter for years at those who turned me down for ID jobs, but seeing exactly what experienced instructional designers were capable of, I realized that back then, I wasn’t ready yet to become an ID. I soaked up everything they told me about from creating outcomes, designing rubrics, building blueprints, interviewing SMEs, mapping activities, facilitating workshops, and more. It was here that I gained some real ID skills in a short period of time. My first assignment was to design a challenged-based learning degree between Northeastern and General Electric (GE). As you can imagine, it was incredibly difficult, but I loved every minute of it.

Fast forward to a year later, and I began to notice that something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the last time I had experienced this, it meant that there was a rapid change ahead. My fear was that I would lose my mentors and be put back into a position where I wasn’t growing. In perhaps the boldest move I’ve ever done in my career, I decided to look for a new role before learning about the final outcome. On a whim, I searched for ID jobs on Glassdoor, and an odd job posting popped up for MIT. The title was for a “Program Manager” position, but the job description reminded me of a senior ID role. I applied and assumed that I would never hear back.

To my surprise, I received an email asking for a phone interview. This phone call right from the very beginning was just different. The ones interviewing me were the other Program Managers and we essentially talked about our favorite strategies for designing courses. The in-person interview dived in even deeper to these topics and I was blown away by their attention to tiny details about designing courses. Basically, I could tell they were my kind of nerdy people. I accepted their offer and have been pushing the boundaries of my design skills ever since. MIT has given me the opportunity to be as creative as possible with no idea being too crazy, and trust me, I’ve had some crazy ideas. My teammates, learners, and colleagues have made me an even better designer and I can’t wait to see what’s going to come next.

So, that’s my story of how I became an ID and why I’m so passionate about online learning. If you made it this far in my long rambling, here are some of my main takeaways:

Network with the right people and stay in touch with them
Think about how you can constantly grow in your career and avoid plateauing
Find mentors who are willing to teach you new skills
Keep an open mind to learning more each day
Be aware of your surroundings and step outside of your comfort zone

Overall, you should never give up. Don’t accept the word no. If you face a barrier, find a way around it and keep on going. Work hard. And then work harder than that. Care about the student experience above anything else because education is the greatest gift you can give to someone.