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Welcome to the Atypical Professional's blog, where I delve into professional communication, experiences, development, and reflection. My unique perspective, stemming from a non-traditional background, sets me apart. This blog is crafted for fellow students and professionals alike, aiming to foster growth and insightful reflection.
Career Enjoyment
When we look at our day-to-day work life, it is often easy to point out the negative. Meetings that run too long or have unmanageable workloads, with just a little more always being added on. But it is important to focus on the good parts of our work, because while we may not be able to change the situations we find ourselves in, we can change how we react to them. By doing so, we often create an infectious positivity that permeates our professional and personal lives. In my professional life, I am incredibly fortunate to have found the career I am in. I work as a Military University Development Counselor for Grand Canyon University. In this role, I specifically provide Active Duty, Veterans, and their families with resources to navigate the Veterans Affairs Office and find the right degree programs that meet their professional and educational goals. The best part of this job is that it allows me to give back to a community that is near and dear to my heart, and seeing these individuals bettering themselves is infectious and motivates me to be better every day. By far the best
While there are countless other things I enjoy about working for the University, like working from home and 35 paid days off a year (two of which are to volunteer at a charity of my choosing), I would ike to highlight how it invests heavily in its culture and training. The culture of positivity and support cannot be understated. For example, in my first 60 days at the University, I identified that active-duty Soldiers were struggling to find a program that checked all the boxes for acceptance into the military's Physician Assistant program. Within a week of bringing it up with my manager, she had arranged a meeting with my division's Vice President to discuss setting up a degree path for these Soldiers. While the results of the meeting are still unknown (sounds promising though), the fact that such a junior employee had a face-to-face with someone so high up in the organization shows that they do care about what their employee think. Continuing the investment in employees' initial training, all staff in the organization receive a minimum of 5 weeks of training, with a maximum of 120 days, depending on the job. Even after your training is complete, it is mandated that every team complete at least 3 hours of training per week. I have yet to meet someone at the University who isn't willing to teach others and be a mentor.
While I could keep going on other aspects of the job I enjoy, it goes far beyond the scope of this assignment. My experiences at the job can inspire you to find joy in your own career or serve as a reminder about the importance of being positive in the workplace. If your workplace culture is lacking, try making small, positive changes; hopefully, they will become the catalyst for a better culture.
Professional Communication- Peer Review 11/16/2025
First and foremost, thank you to Greg and Rachel for letting me look at their professional communications.
In his email exchange with Major Sturick (https://www.gpbaird.com/post/week-2-real-life-examples), we can clearly see both the good and the bad aspects of communication. Looking at the initial email from Major Sturick, I feel like he broke the first guideline from chapter six: "include everything your reader needs and nothing else." He includes extra information in the email, primarily listing all the aircraft parts at DRMO. That statement doesn't add anything to the communication. Obviously, they thought of it because they emailed someone at DRMO about aircraft parts. He didn't include the bottom line up front. Was the primary purpose of the email to put Greg in contact with someone or to procure aircraft parts? Even though I am nitpicking the email, overall, it has a great tone and accomplishes its goals of introducing Greg to someone new and of starting the process of procuring old aircraft parts. I really liked how Greg responded to the original email. You could tell from his response and his offer to get pictures of the aircraft parts that Greg understood his reader and was tailoring his response to what he thought the reader wanted to hear, while maintaining a friendly, professional tone. My only critique of Greg's portion of the email was the lack of a signature.
The next is Rachel's text message to a customer https://rachelmcoleman2016.wixsite.com/island-soul-chronicl/post/examples-of-professional-communication. Her message was clear and precise, and she grouped similar items as recommended by Anderson (2020). The bottom disclaimer in the text did catch me off guard, though. While I understand that such disclaimers are essential, they distract from the overall picture. She uses a friendly, professional tone in the text.
Evaluating Digital Portfolios 11/09/2025
I want to thank Seth for letting me review his website for this week's assignment. His website's biggest strength is its navigability and intuitive links embedded in the home page.
Artificial Intelligence in Professional Communication 11/02/2025
Geography of Professional Communication 10/26/2025
My core responsibility as a Military Development Counselor is to communicate effectively with Active-Duty Soldiers, Veterans, their families, and business partners. I provide college resources and develop business relationships to address educational gaps. Day-to-day, I communicate with three key groups: my team, students, and community partners, each requiring tailored and intentional communication.
A frequent challenge is how my communication is perceived. Some see me as only trying to recruit for financial gain, even though I often help students and families access entirely free education. Others view my role as supportive of student growth and community benefit, which reflects my true intention. Because of these perceptions, I work to make my outreach as genuine as possible. When meeting new people, I ask personal questions about their family or pets, and record these details for personalized follow-ups, to show I care and to build trust.
Each group I communicate with wants different information. My team expects brief, direct updates on the status of students, accounts, and expense reports. Students need clear, step-by-step instructions for enrollment and benefits with no room for confusion, with a personal, empathetic touch. Business partners want prompt, clear communication focused on the benefits my college provides them. First and foremost, across all three groups, my readers expect communication that is accurate, free of grammatical and spelling errors. Many prospective students wish to start classes within a week of enrollment (my university starts new classes weekly), which means I need to be accurate and precise in my communication and also be positive. This is an important time in their life, and I don't want to set a negative tone, especially with such an important event underway. It can potentially turn them away from my university. To my business partners, I often must be more “professional” (I think of it as being robotic); these communications may get shared across an organization or its clients, and I should not be adding personal touches in written communication, as it can distract from the information that I am putting out.
To better assist with writing emails to my students and business partners, I utilize three essential tools. One is a template bank that I have made over time. While most of these are very generic, they provide a great starting point for drafting emails to students and business partners, allowing me to focus on the important details. The next tool is Grammarly. Before I send any email, I run it through Grammarly to ensure it is grammatically correct. The last tool is time. I try to give myself 10 minutes between drafting an email and sending it. That way, I can give it one quick final read to ensure accuracy and that it makes sense. The most important writing skill is to write clearly and to assume that my readers know nothing about what I am talking about. I often find myself forgetting that not everyone knows precisely what the Post 9/11 GI Bill is, for example (EVEN THOUGH I KNOW THE MILITARY BRIEFED THEM ON IT SEVERAL TIMES THROUGHOUT THEIR CAREER, IT'S REQUIRED BY LAW!!!! SIGH). Hence, I need to make sure to thoroughly discuss what that means, benefits-wise, for the student, and that the Veterans Affairs Office actually refers to it as Chapter 33 benefits, to help make their own communications with the Veterans Affairs office easier.
Luckily, my university has strict policies and guidelines to help alleviate any ethical concerns in our communications. Two issues have arisen in my time as a counselor, though. Firstly, I have had several students I knew personally reach out to me directly for information about their school, which is a FERPA violation. In these situations, I must firmly and politely instruct them to call me on my work phone, which is on a recorded line, so I can answer the question, because answering it could cost me my job. The following situation I have had is students trying to get me to help them lie on their FAFSA and Veterans Affairs forms to get them a better rate on their federal assistance.