Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Joan M., Master of Education in Instructional Design
Name: Joan Medlen
Age: 46
Marital Status: Married
Children: 2 boys; 21 and 18
Strength: Caring for a son who was born with Down syndrome, autism, and celiac disease.
School: UMass Online
Target: M.Ed. in Instructional Design, June 2009
In his famous poem, Langston Hughes asked, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?"
Luckily that hasn't been the case for dietitian and mother Joan Guthrie Medlen. She is finally fulfilling her deferred dream of earning an advanced degree by going back to school online.
Graduate education was a dream of Joan's from when she was young, but when life intervened, she was forced to put that dream on hold for 20 years. Now, thanks to the online master's program in instructional design offered by the University of Massachusetts, she feels like her dream has been given back to her.
Joan began her higher education by earning a bachelor's degree in dietetics from Kansas State University as a young adult. Joan says, "I had grown up believing that I would go on to graduate school after my children were born."
But life didn't go according to plan.
Joan married and had two boys, the younger of whom, Andy, was born with Down syndrome, autism, and celiac disease. Caring for a child with special needs was incredibly demanding and Joan admits, "I gave up on my dreams."
Joan still managed to build an impressive résumé, working as a dietitian and nutrition educator for many years. For ten years she ran a foundation that supported people with disabilities and their families.
When the foundation closed in 2005, Joan began working as a consultant, providing nutrition and lifestyle counseling to people with and without developmental disabilities.
By that point, Joan had racked up tons of experience in her field, but she felt her lack of a graduate degree was holding her back from advancing in her career.
"I have been aware of the need to further my education for a number of years," she says. I am uniquely qualified in many ways—doing work that is ground-breaking in the area of health promotion for people with intellectual disabilities."
But there is something about those letters after your name, she acknowledges, "that brings the work instant credibility."
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