Rex and Instructional Design

Hello, and welcome to my instructional design blog!
How did I get to this point? Well, I drifted through various technical jobs during my career in the automotive industry, but generally did not find a lot of personal satisfaction in what I was doing. The jobs were important as they involved fixing things and making customers happy, but it seemed like I was just doing the same tasks repeatedly and was not able to use creativity and innovation in my day-to-day tasks.
A little over ten years ago one of my friends asked me to apply for a job in my company's training department. He pestered me for few years, and over that time I was increasing unhappy with the work I was doing and eventually decided to make the move.
It was the best career decision I ever made.
I knew nothing about training, but my bosses supported me and made sure I got the education I needed to be able to do my job properly -- most notably, I had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Jim Cook. Dr. Cook introduced me to theories and processes that were mostly based on the work of Robert Mager, with a lot of real-world common sense thrown in. These processes worked well for me for ten years, and over that time I refined my approach and enjoyed using my creativity to develop courses that would help people do their jobs more effectively. At times there was frustration as I tried things that did not work, but overall it was a very satisfying endeavor.
Last year I attended a training development seminar that was moderated By Bill Heacock, at a time when I realized that I was not growing and I wanted to increase my knowledge so that perhaps some day I could help others improve their instructional design processes. I felt like I had learned as much as I was going to on my own, and asked for his guidance with what direction to take my development next. Bill gave me some very good ideas, and one solid recommendation: I needed to pursue an advanced degree in instructional design.
A masters degree in instructional design would immerse me in the theories behind what I had been doing for years, so that i would know WHY I do the things I do, as well as providing other options for how to do things better. Also, a program like this focuses on the entire development process, which includes project management and the important nuts and bolts on programming and hosting online learning which would help round out my skills.
After checking with my family, I decided to take the plunge and apply for a masters program in instructional design, but there were a lot of programs out there to choose from.
Stay tuned for my next post, where I will write about which program I picked, and why.
Thank you!