Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Jen S., Master of Education in Leadership of Educational Organizations
Name: Jen Schwartz
Age: 36
Marital Status: Married
Children: Four, ages 1½, 6, 7, and 8-years-old
Current Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Major Achievement: She and her husband founded the Sego Lily School in Salt Lake City.
Current School: AIU Online
Target: M.Ed. in Leadership of Ed. Orgs., August 2007
Where does someone who runs an alternative education program go when they want to complete their graduate degree?
For Jen, a 36-year-old mother of four, the answer is "a distance learning program."
Jen and her husband run the Sego Lily School, a small alternative K-12 private school in Salt Lake City, Utah. Besides running the school, Jen has also written one book about the school, and is working on another.
She felt a master's degree would not only lend credibility to the school, but also to her career as an author.
For that reason, Jen enrolled in the Masters in Education with a concentration in Leadership of Educational Organizations at American Intercontinental University.
"I needed to know that the design of the program was flexible enough to accommodate my interest in alternative education," said Jen.
"The type of school I founded is extremely alternative, and I didn't want to be stuck in a master's program tailored only to the traditional educator. Ultimately, I chose AIU because I saw it was flexible enough."
Jen is anything but a traditional educator. She said she began tutoring children with learning disabilities when she was only 9-years-old.
At the Sego Lily School, "children ages 4-18 are free to pursue their individual interests while participating as responsible members of our democratic school community," according to the school's Web site. Perhaps it should be no surprise that Jen chose an alternative route to her graduate degree as well.
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