Welcome to Digication
Scholars Conversations.

I'm your host, Jeff Yan.

In this episode, you will hear part
one of my conversation with Jorge

Colon, Associate Professor of Practice
at the Center for Veterinary Business

and Entrepreneurship at the College of
Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

More links and information about today's
conversation can be found on Digication's

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Full episodes of Digication Scholars
Conversations can be found on

YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Welcome to Digication
Scholars Conversations.

I'm your host, Jeff Yan.

My guest today is Jorge Colon,
Associate Professor of Practice at

the Center for Veterinary Business
and Entrepreneurship at the College of

Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

Hi there, Jorge.

How are you?

I'm doing great, Jeff.

Thanks for having me.

Now, you were introduced to
us, um, by Pat Graham, uh, from

Cornell University, someone who I
have worked with for many years.

He had a lot of, uh, great things
to say about you, and I had taken a

look at your bio, and it's really,
really, really, really impressive.

Um, I particularly, I really enjoyed
seeing your portfolio on Digication,

where I got to learn so much about you.

Um, and once I saw it, I, I thought,
wow, we have to, we have to talk to him.

Now, give me, uh, why don't you bring
us on that journey a little bit,

perhaps starting literally from you
were born and raised in Puerto Rico.

Yeah, so I'm, uh, I'm a Puerto Rico U.

S., uh, I'm born and raised
in, in Guaynal, Puerto Rico,

just southwest of San Juan.

And I, I was Um, I grew up there
until I finished my high school

education and then I actually came
to Ithaca, New York to Cornell

University as an undergrad student.

I studied biology here at Cornell with
the goals of going into veterinary

school, something that I did.

I, I went to the Cornell
College of Veterinary Medicine.

After my undergraduate years,
I graduated in 1995 and I was

an equine trained veterinarian.

I went to Lexington, Kentucky to
work as an equine veterinarian

and I did that for about 25 years.

I had a very good professional
career down there.

I was pretty much in layman's terms
a horse OBGYN and a pediatrician.

So I did that as a self employed
veterinarian, but I also had a

passion for business and finance.

So in the process of being a veterinarian,
I also Study Finances and I, I received,

uh, I obtained my Master's in Business
Administration and during the process

of starting to share information
in veterinary business with fellow

colleagues in the veterinary space, an
opportunity came here at the College

of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell with
the creation of a new center called

the Center for Veterinary Business and
Entrepreneurship, which you mentioned.

And there was a position opening,
the first position created by the

Center for the Education position.

So I took the, I made a career
move and I stopped being a daily

equine veterinarian and I came back.

I came to academia.

I had never been in academia.

So 25 years after I had left
Ithaca, New York, I came back.

I moved my whole family across the
country to um, start a new career

in education and now I'm tasked with
the development and implementation

of veterinary business education for
veterinary students within the curriculum

and the creation of our certificate
in veterinary business of management.

So I do that now as my full time job
but in the meantime when I have time I

still get to go to the barn and teach
students how to work with horses and

get some horse hair back on my clothing.

So there you are.

The washer and the dryer have
some horse hair, clean horse

hair, but they still have it.

My wife is a very horse person since
birth, so not having horse hair

in the washer and dryer has been
a weird scenario that we haven't

gotten used to for a while, so.

So that's a very concise
description of what I've done.

Um, I, uh, I'm very happy here
working with students at Cornell.

It's, uh, it provides great pleasure
in helping other people become

better versions of themselves.

And I get to use the skills that
I have not only from education,

but also from life experiences.

And so this education platform has
served a tremendous purpose for me,

not only for helping students with
their growth and personal development.

But also communicating to a people some
of the things that I do like you, you

learn a lot about me from my portfolio,
which I, I happened to stumble upon what

Digication was during a meeting that I
was part of, um, some showcase by, you

mentioned, um, Pat Graham, their, um,
center down, down campus, and they had a

showcase of the products that they have
available and Digication was one of them.

So very, very long story short, I just
stumbled upon Digication and now, uh,

I'm hooked on it, and, and there's all
kinds of programs that I have here at

the College that are hooked on it, and,
and we kind of, I have some courses

that can't live without it, so, I'm,
uh, I'm in for the, for the duration.

Well, that's, that's great to hear.

Uh, you, you said something that
I thought was really amazing.

Now, you were, you know,
you had a successful career.

You still have it, but you, you started
with a successful career for 25 years.

You know, working day to day, full time
with horses and animals and, um, and,

um, and of course you had said that you
also have an interest in business and

finance and so you got the degree and
then you got an opportunity to come back.

What makes you Maybe tell us a little
bit more about like that jump, you

know, like from being working, you
know, working in a, in the sort of

the professional field, coming back
to academia and working with students.

Was it, was teaching something
that you'd always wanted?

Because it's, it's really three things.

You are interested in, you know,
um, working with horses, but you,

you know, you, you also talked
about entrepreneurship and, you

know, business, but also teaching.

Yeah.

I mean, um, let me break it.

Into, down into different parts, because
I kind of jumped too quickly into, into

my whole life story in 30 seconds, but as
a, as a kid in high school in Puerto Rico,

I was very interested in the sciences
and the maths, um, and I started working

at the racetrack with a family friend
who was a veterinarian, and I just got

exposed to the horses at the racetrack,
and looking to my veterinary years when I,

So all my other classmates in veterinary
school who were interested in horses,

they were either riding horses since
they were little kids or they grew up

on a farm or I did none of those things.

I, I, I grew up on an island.

I sailed and I snorkel and I scuba
dive and I didn't ride horses, but I

developed a love and a passion for The
horse as part of my interest in science.

So the science background comes from that.

I pursued biology as a means
of achieving something.

I'm the type of person that
I did everything that I

recommend my students to not do.

I did not have a plan B.

I had plan A and plan
A was the only thing.

And that was, I was going to go to
school to become a veterinarian.

I didn't really have plan
B, which is a bad idea.

And I teach my students to not do
that now, and you know, do as I

say, not as I do type of scenario.

So that's one part.

The teaching part is something that I
didn't know I had in me, other than when

I was talking to clients as part of my
professional career as a veterinarian,

clients would, you know, I, there's
a difference in my mind between

teaching, where it's a one sided, I
know something, you don't know it, and

I'm gonna make sure that you are aware
of the fact that I know more than you.

That's one way of doing it.

And unfortunately, there's too
many people that do it that way.

The way that I prefer to say
is I like to share knowledge.

So if I gain knowledge on something
from experience or from education, if

part of my cultural bringing to you
wanna share that with someone else and

make you a better version of yourself.

Um, one of the statements that I made here
that that's, that's been copied by some

of my colleagues is that at one point in
time I can't remember what exactly what.

What's after we're
talking about confidence.

And I said something, I made something
that said, uh, confidence is the

ability to help someone become a better
version of themselves, even if that

means they'll become better than you.

And to me, that's what teaching is
to me, teaching is sharing knowledge.

And so I started doing that with clients.

We would have students coming by to visit.

I was that student at one point in
time working underneath a veterinarian

and just learning to be a better
version of that, which I wanted to

be was extremely important for me.

So being able to do that for was something
that just became important to me because

A, I enjoyed it and B, I was being told
that, you know, I was actually good at it.

And I, they could relate more to
me because I wasn't this person

that was trying to make sure
that, hey, I know more than you.

I want to teach you some stuff, but at the
end of the day, I want to make sure that

you know that I still know more than you.

That, that's just not
who the person that I am.

Upbringing, Culture, and everything else.

And so, those two things were combined.

Now, I also combined the fact
that I also had a deep passion

for business and finance.

I grew up in a business family.

I'm the ugly duckling of my family
that did not pursue a business degree.

Straight out of, you know,
as part of my career.

I am the only family member outside of a
cousin that's a science background, as a

biochemist, and she was a science teacher.

I'm the only one who has a medical
or science degree in my family.

So, in the process of being a veterinarian
and running my own business, I started

working with fellow colleagues and
friends with helping them with their

business in the process of surviving
as a veterinarian, because you need to

have a business to be able to survive.

You can be a great veterinarian, but if
you don't take care of your business,

you don't, you don't have a job tomorrow.

And so all things got combined slowly,
but surely, and then a passion was

developed for Sharing knowledge about
a passion of mine, which was business

within a space that was a passion of mine,
which is the veterinary medicine space.

And we're in 2023 now, but back in
2015, 2016, the words veterinary

and business used to never be
mentioned in the same sentence.

It's just not a common thing.

I have a job doing this now, but this
job did not exist way back, you know,

way back, meaning eight years ago.

I remember clearly when I was in
business school, one of my professors

That became a really big mentor for me.

He said, Jorge, you're training
for a job that doesn't exist.

What you're, what you're wanting to
do with your two passions, Veterinary

Medicine and Business, just a job
for that specifically doesn't exist.

And it didn't, until for me, it
was the creation of the center.

So, the combination of, Those three
things, science, finances, business, and

the desire to share knowledge and teach
in the way that I like to do, just came

together like a perfect storm and all
combined at a moment in time in my career

where I was I had spent enough time doing
one of the things that I really had a

passion for and I still love and loved
what I was doing, but I just had another

passion that I had the opportunity to
pursue, which I love and I love doing.

I did not abandon one for the other.

I think in my mind, I still
get to do a little bit of both.

So that's, that's, that's a
combination all in put together to,

to create the space where I'm at now.

You're an amazing example of what, um,
what's, uh, what, uh, I, I, I think what.

What a lot of people actually like, but
are scared to or have been, they've had

to suppress that because of societal
norms or what's expected of them.

Or maybe it's for other reasons, maybe
financially they need to take a job and

then they take them in certain directions.

But even in those cases, you
know, like now people have many

careers, you know, most people,
um, uh, you know, don't try to.

You know, have this very linear, pre
planned path where they go, I studied

this and I want to work in this
firm for the next 40 years and I'm

going to retire and then that's it.

Um, in fact, I think, you know,
students today would think of that

concept as being unimaginable.

Like how, how boring, how How, how single
sided, you know, that would be to a

single, you know, so single dimension,
singly, singly dimensional to, to life.

You know, they want to
do all kinds of things.

They want to have all
kinds of experiences.

And the fact of the matter is that Um,
I, I feel like that you are a perfect

example of it, but you know, we are all
have a special blend in a way, right?

You have this passion for, um, for,
for the, for the, for the three

things that you talked about and
that you are good at them, right?

You have aptitude for them and you
have developed passion and developed

a way to get, to put them together.

Um, but our students do the same
things too, don't you think?

You know, I'm sure you see a lot of that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I tell the students all the
time that as much as it seems

like I have life completely under
control because I'm this Mentorship

figure that they now see, right?

Because in my mind, I'm still like one of
them But really they could be my children

because they're the age of my children.

So I'm much older.

My mind just doesn't want to accept
it Um, as much as it sounds in my

head, like I, uh, everything in my
life under control, my life really has

been taking advantage of opportunities
that have just presented to me.

You just gotta be prepared
to take advantage of them.

When I, when I left school, I was
never going to be working with

mayors and foals, with moms and
babies in the Thoroughbred industry.

I was not gonna do that.

I wanted to be an equine surgeon.

And one thing led to the other,
and something that I said I'm never

gonna do again became what I did.

for a career.

And that's what I did in my
professional career as a veterinarian.

I worked in something that
was not part of the plan.

Um, coming to academia was
never part of the plan at all.

Not even a thought process
of I want to someday become a

faculty member at a university.

That was not a thought process at all,
but an opportunity presented itself

that The right place, the right time.

It was just perfect for, so, so
life has been just a continuous

zigzag for an opportunities.

You have to be prepared to be able to
take advantage of them, but I don't

care what plan I had when I was younger.

That plan went out the window
a long, long, long time ago.

And still to this day, every plan
that I have, you know, it's not

that I'm just throwing plants out
the window left and right, but.

Opportunities are presented in front of
me based on the accomplishments of the

different things that you're doing and
so you just follow them and you pursue

them and then you have a passion for
them and some things you get good at and

you follow those some things you're not
that good at and then you find someone

else that's better than you at those and
then you follow the ones worth pursuing

and, and that's where we end up at.

But yeah, the concept of staying for
your whole career doing one thing that

is just not the norm in today's Society,
and I guess I'm a little bit of an

example that even though I grew up in
a, uh, uh, longer ago society, um, I, I

still live by the present day scenario
of, hey, uh, things change, and you

gotta be, you better be ready for it.

And I think that's actually one
of the things that I have found.

I want to go into sort of the idea of
higher education for a minute, because I

think you are such a great example of it.

There are.

You know, I, I, I talk to a lot of
people, sometimes some of them parents,

some of them are just pundits who
talk about what, what's the value of

higher education, you know, and higher
education, in fact, is under attack a lot

of the times, you know, Is it expensive?

Is it worth it?

And then some people start to make all
kinds of, um, assumptions that I think

are just, is incredibly incorrect.

You know, assumptions such as, well, if I
just wanted the skills, why is the school

teaching me all kinds of, all these,
you know, things that are, The liberal

arts classes, the general education
classes, et cetera, that doesn't matter.

Now, I'm not, by the way, saying that
that's the only way to do it, but people

have this sort of immense sort of,
you know, sort of oversimplification

of education could be done.

But just by saying straight line,
you wanna learn this skill, take this

class, do this exercise, you learn
the skill, now you're ready to go.

Um, and, and I think that it's actually.

Um, you are sort of that proof, which
is, no, actually you, you kind of need

all kinds of other padding, all kinds
of other support structure that allows

you to veer off and take advantage of
opportunities should they come your way.

And guess what?

If you have all the padding
to do that stuff, they will

come and you can get them.

You can catch them.

Um, otherwise, you do actually corner
yourself into a very singularly minded

path that I think one could feel
extremely trapped, actually, if anything.

You know, you, you, you train to this one
thing, you have no, you know, it doesn't

feel like you have the skills to do all
these other things, and you yourself

had said, look, even if I just want to
practice, it's a business I have to run.

I have to figure out how to bill
people, I have to figure out the

market, I have to figure out how to.

You know, communicate with people.

So, just being able to be that,
you know, surgeon doesn't,

is not good enough, right?

Yeah, all of this, you know, I, there's
a motivational speaker, Jim Rohn.

Was a key component of some of
the decision making process that,

uh, that had me switch careers
midlife by following two passions.

And one of the most important things that
I learned from him is a phrase that he

uses where he says, To succeed in life,
you have to have more than one skill.

And so, I agree with you, there's people
who have a single set of skills and

they can actually have a pretty good
life based on that one set of skills.

The issue, not a problem, but the
issue with that is that there could

be other opportunities for different
scenarios, there could be betterment,

there could be anything, but they might
not be able to take advantage of them

because they don't have the skills
to be prepared to take advantage,

even to recognize the opportunity.

Not only can they not take advantage of
the opportunity, but they might not even

recognize that there's an opportunity.

So, if you have more than one skill, if
you have multiple skills, you actually

end up having different opportunities.

So you can do that zig and zagging
associated with life changes that

we just talked about a second
ago, based on how life evolves.

It doesn't mean that one person is
better than the other person, it's

that one person might be providing
themselves with better opportunities

to address opportunities that come
by, which is exactly what you said.

And that's exactly what's
happened with my career.

The, the wanting to have more than one
skill is an essential concept that,

that Jim Rohn made me think about,
you know, probably I was driving in my

vehicle, driving from farm A to farm
B with, you know, we used to call it

windshield time and that time spent
on the vehicle during farm calls.

And it's, you know, it starts
gets you thinking, you know,

I already speak Spanish.

I grew up speaking Spanish, I speak
English, I speak Spanglish, I speak

barn Spanish, I, you know, I have
multiple language skills, but now

I speak the language of finance.

I speak the language of business.

Now I can speak the language of those
things in the education side, like

how do I communicate with students
learning the differences between.

When I was a student here at the college
versus the students that we have here

now, their, their cultural upbringing is
different, the, um, mentality, the, um,

it's just a different type of student.

So, so you adapt to that and you
have to develop a skill to be able

to adapt to the changes, even though
the scenario is the same thing,

they're learning veterinary medicine.

And so, as you're saying, Not one person
is necessarily better than another, but,

but having multiple skills just allows
you to be more a jack of all trades, to

be able to adapt to different scenarios.

Now, you had said that current students
mentality is different, and I, I agree.

I, I have observed it myself as well, and
I am, by the way, a little bit like you,

where I, I kept thinking I'm like them,
and, and then, and then I, um, Just last

week, I was at a dentist and the dentist
said, I won't share too much details here,

but the dentist said, you know, you're,
you have this issue, but generally,

you know, we would, we would treat it,
but at your age, we can just moderate.

I'm only at my age.

I, I don't think I'm like at
the, at my age conversation.

Um, but I, sometimes I, you know,
catch myself with that and I have,

you know, teenager, you know, children
who Who keep telling me, you know,

like at your age, um, and, and, um,
and I, I have noticed though, the

mentality is, it really is different.

What is your observation when
you talk to your students?

How it compares to when you were
their age and that you were also a

student at the undergraduate level?

Well, I'll be careful here with my words
because I don't want to make it sound

like, yeah, when we were younger, we
were uphill both ways and all that stuff.

I don't want to say that, but.

Just, um, the mentality of the
student is different, um, uh, these

are real things that obviously
we had when we were younger.

We just didn't talk about it or think
about it or it wasn't a societal

issue, but mental health for example.

Um, I was just talking to
some students this morning.

Um, they are in their fourth year clinical
rotation here through the hospital.

They rotate through the different
sections within the hospital, large

animals, small animal, multiple things.

And I was talking to some students who
are in large animal and they were working

with some horses and some cows and pigs.

And they were talking about the fact that
they were on their second week of their

rotation and they were physically tired
of the tremendous amount of work that

they have to do as students working and
the long hours required by the rotation.

And I was stopping by because I was doing
something in the barn and they said, Dr.

Colon, how did you do this
when you were in practice?

Because at one point in time, you
told us that we're at, at one point in

your career, you were starting at the
farm at five o'clock in the morning.

What time were you making it home?

And my answer was, well, whenever
the last emergency was taken care of.

Sometimes it was five o'clock in
the afternoon and sometimes it

was two o'clock in the morning.

And they're like, well, what time
did you go to work the next day?

I'm like, well, I was at the first
farm at five o'clock in the morning.

But you just said you went to bed at two.

I'm like, well, sometimes I
didn't go to bed because I

had to be at the farm at five.

So we, we had a mentality about work
that is not trying to say anything

that is superior to what they have now.

I'm not trying to say that at all.

But the component of mental health
comes now into the equation, something

that Again, not that we didn't
have that, but it's, it's in the

forefront of conversations today
in work life balance, for example.

The words work life balance exist
as individual words, but they were

not part of the same sentence back
when I graduated back in 1995, right?

And so So, so some of the approaches
to workload and need for time off for

the compression and the ability to
have self time and all the things,

it's different now than it was then.

Um, and so some of the things
translate to the components

of in the classroom scenario.

Um, I remember when I was a student,
um, and it didn't, it didn't matter

how long of a night you not had
the night before because you were

studying or you were having a
really good time with your friends.

For the most part, most of us just
showed up to class the next day.

Like you didn't skip a class.

Not attending classes in person now is
actually a very, very common scenario.

People now have the opportunity because
of things that happened with COVID.

All classes, most of the foundation
classes are recorded for many

different reasons, um, students that
need, um, special services needs that

need classes, recording, et cetera.

So people are taking advantage of that.

And then they just don't show up to class.

And that's something that I would have
never done when I was in their shoes.

So, so the method of
learning is even different.

Um, because of the technology that they
have available, when you and I were

probably in school recording class was
never even a component of anything unless

somebody had a VHS camera and that would
have been like brand new technology.

So, so there's things that are different
and they translate into changes in the way

that students learn or students approach
learning and the way that these people

approach the work that needs to be done.

So all these things are different.

Not that we were climbing uphill
both ways, but it's just different

in a different way for them.

It's difficult for them
the way it is for them now.

It was difficult for us the way
that it was for us back then.

I mean, it's just a different scenario.

I, as a mentor for them now and a
teacher for them, now I have to adapt

to their system and not let those
Thoughts in my head of what it was like

when I was here influence how I think
they should be feeling because now

I gotta adapt to what they're doing.

So there's just changes.

It's just different.

I think that's amazing that you're
able to talk about those things so,

um, you know, you simplified it.

So it's very easy to understand
and see those scenarios.

Because I feel the same way.

I mean, I'm one of the
creators of Digication.

And when we created Digication, there's
a certain pedagogical There's a lot of

pedagogical goals that we try to reach,
but I will say that some of the ways

that I see how people use it today.

Those are not the ways that I had thought
that I, how I would have used it when I

was, you know, a student at their age.

Um, when I was thinking about things
like people are reflecting on things

kind of similar to your windshield time.

Um, it's not to that level
of sort of reflection.

It's always about the work itself.

You know, so I studied, I had
studied to be an architect.

So I'm using that time to think
about deeply on the architectural

concepts or ideas I might have or
different solutions to a problem.

But you know what I have discovered today,
as much as we, you know, you just talked

about work life balance, but I also think
that it comes with people now starting

to talk about meaning and purpose.

And meaning and purpose was not something
that me or my classmates talked about.

We would talk about the
rigor of the work itself.

You know, like how, how brilliant
this solution could be, et cetera.

It gets actually almost like overly
nerdy and philosophical sometimes,

but it doesn't go into the.

Meaning and purpose so much.

Today, I hear architecture students talk
about how does architecture and the space

that we build create justice for society.

You know, how do we do this to
reflect on, you know, climate change

and, you know, change in, you know,
whatever the issues that are in the

world, maybe locally or globally.

Those are the kind of things that
I felt like we didn't even have

the language to even talk about.

And I don't know, maybe I was just
super naive and was just my hand in

the, you know, in the sand too much.

I couldn't tell what's going on
in the rest of the world and now

maybe that's just more amplified.

So I, I do think that, you know,
as much as, you know, these changes

also had brought in some really
interesting components that,

that to me is really different.

I see students portfolios
these days, you know.

The, it's almost like it takes, I also,
by the way, was traded as an architect

and look what I, you know, I'm like
doing all completely different things.

So sort of multiple career and, you
know, taking on the opportunities.

I felt really lucky about that.

I almost feel like some students
when I see their portfolios.

You know, they're, they're,
they're in college.

They already have had
those experiences in life.

You know, they tried internships,
they tried, they did study abroad.

They did, you know, um, you know,
uh, had certain opportunities

when they were young, etc.

And they already taking the
time to have those moments.

And I really felt like I
didn't have that, you know?

Yeah, when, I agree with everything
you just said and, and just going

back slightly, um, I agree with you.

I, in my mind, I want to think that
these things that we're experiencing

today did not exist when we were them.

But they did, they just weren't amplified,
just like you say, it's more a forefront

within today's culture than it was
back then, it cannot be something that

just was created brand new, it just
existed all along, we either did not pay

attention even though it was around us,
so I think you and I are very similar

in that way, or it was just not part of,
it was not amplified within the society

that we lived in, I don't think it's
new, I just think that it was just Not

that big of a factor when back when.

I think you're absolutely right.

I mean, I, I did remember clearly that
it was a lot about like, I need to find

a job and career and, and, and, and
survive and make money and pay rent.

You know, but it was not, um, I guess
that, you know, all of us would have

wanted something that we like doing, you
know, but, but that was not as important,

you know, it was, it was almost like, I
just wanted to make it, it, it didn't,

didn't matter, give me a job and I'll
do it, you know, at least that's how I

felt, you know, we didn't have the, you
know, it just, um, you know, sometimes

you also don't know enough, right?

Um, you don't know enough, like we
weren't exposed, climate change exists.

You know, Al Gore wasn't there to
talk about it, and so unless you are

really, uh, uh, really niche into
understanding, you know, as a climate

scientist, you wouldn't be aware.

Um, right?

You know, I'm very much
like you in that regards.

Um, completely agree.

And to touch on a point you said on the
latter part of your previous statement,

where you talked about what you see
on the students Digication portfolios

today, I'm living this exact same thing
that you're describing, because now I'm

afraid actually that this usage of the
portfolio with my veterinary students,

you know, we talk about imposter syndrome
within the veterinary space, because

it's a big, really big deal, you know,
imposter syndrome is a It's a very

real scenario and more so in the, the
healthcare scenario where one day you're

Joel or Jane Doe and next day you're Dr.

Joel or Jane Doe, right?

And so you have these responsibilities and
so, um, I, I help students to understand

how to, you cannot eliminate it, but you
can, how do you, how do you handle it?

How do you cope with it?

How do you conquer it?

Et cetera.

As I look at these students portfolio
and I see exactly what you're saying, The

things that they have accomplished, the
things that they have done, the languages

they speak, the places that they've been,
the research that they've done, at, at

their age, I hadn't done, like, I hadn't
even dreamed of doing those things.

So I'm like, I'm feeling more and
more like an imposter because I'm

their teacher for this course.

And so the more and more I read these
portfolios, the more and more blown away

I am by the fact that when I was them.

I was nowhere close to being the quality
of the people that these people are

when I was at that stage of their life,
so, so I need to, uh, always try to

prevent them from seeing me as, uh,
completely an imposter for, for being

the quote unquote teacher of their
class, but, but I'm seeing the exact

same thing that you're mentioning.

The things that these students are
accomplishing at a much younger age.

Age in their career is
incredible, incredible.

And to me, that's one of the
biggest values of the portfolio, the

ability to showcase these things.

Um, and when we get to talking about the
portfolio, I can share more on it, but.

But it's what's creating the
difference and how the portfolio

within the way that I use it here at
the college has just taken off like

a wildfire in the process of creating
a difference for these students.

This concludes part one
of our conversation.

To hear part two.

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