Haekyung Lee
Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, 2008
Before entering the UT at Austin, I had worked as an instructional designer, a project manager, and a consultant for designing and developing training courses. Based on my prior career, I would like to have studied more on how to design the best training courses and have experienced diverse areas related to my academic interesting. I could finally find that the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at UT Austin had diverse programs as well as an excellent faculty. So I went to the UT at Austin with great expectations.
I could get in-depth academic experience through research and teaching at UT. I was a teaching assistant from the 2nd semester to my last semester. My advisor, Dr. Paul Resta, was willing to entrust classes to me. In addition I could experience various research activities as well as participate in many projects as a research assistant at Learning Technology Center in the College of Education. There were also diverse research groups in the College of Education. So I could meet many academic peers and professors via the research groups such as “CSCL research group” Dr. Paul Resta was an advisor and “D-Team group” Dr. Diane Schallert was an advisor. The research groups did productive and active academic activities such as publishing papers and presenting papers at many of conferences. These research and teaching experiences strongly helped me have various and in-depth academic perspectives.
Why UT?
The Department of Curriculum & Instruction at UT Austin had welcoming culture rather than I expected. Actually I was an international student coming from Korea, so I was afraid I would not adjust to the university life. However, all people I met helped and supported me to adjust and concentrate on what I wanted to do in UT. They were all my mentors. I know without a doubt that I would not be Dr. Lee without them.
Life After UT
I have been working as a manager at learning center in CJ Corporation in South of Korea. My main role is to design and develop learning programs for CEOs, executives, and managers. Learning programs have to provide differentiated contents to learners who have diverse characteristics, backgrounds, and prior experiences. At the point, all I experienced at UT has been very helpful. In particular, the experiences made me have tactical, strategic, analytic, and diverse perspective in designing programs.
Advice for Students
What I would like to advice for C&I members is to experience as many as you can even though you think the experience seems to be trivial. Any experience can be helpful and supportive for your future. Many experiences with peers and professors will make you have more insights and diverse perspectives.
