Speaker: Jack Quinn, Career Services Instructor
Introduce yourself! What is your role and how long have you been with ACI Learning?
Jack Quinn: Howdy! My name is Jack Quinn. I am one of the founding Career Service Instructors here at ACI. Where our program has been developing and growing these past seven months.
Tell us about your professional journey.
Jack Quinn: I'll start at the beginning. As the son of a single mom who was also an elementary school teacher, education was always stressed as the ticket to the life that I envisioned for myself. The life that my mother wanted me to have. I started out my undergraduate career incredibly determined to make as much money as fast as legally possible. So that I could retire at 40, and sail around the world. Things were going pretty well through this point, I graduated high school as valedictorian on a Friday night and the following Monday I started my first college class on a fast-track CPA/NBA pre-law program, I wanted to be a tax lawyer. Things were really going pretty well. I got some great internships, I got some Fortune 500 experience, I got to work as an analyst, then June 18th, 2005 happened. I had a serious car accident, and I was forced to ask myself the question, "How I would feel about my life, if I didn't make it to 40." So like that big payoff. I also could no longer, because of the accident, do the long hours at a desk that I had been doing for my internships and for my part-time work. I had to try something new, my body just wasn't capable of doing much else. I could only work for about an hour a day, so I became a tutor. It allowed me to set my schedule. I could work an hour a day, and on a good day, maybe two. One in the morning and one at night, if I was really feeling up for it. I found that I absolutely loved helping others learn. Within two years I graduated with a minor in accounting but a major in philosophy. I did one of the few jobs you can do as a major in philosophy, I became an English teacher, and the next 5 years flew by in a flash. I got to travel the world, mostly Southeast Asia, and really discovered what has become one of the great loves of my life and that is teaching. Now, I've been an enthusiastic educator for well over 15 years. I've gotten to wear a lot of hats, that you'll learn more about in our class. I've been a teacher trainer, an ed-tech hiring manager, admissions selector for Teach for America, and an Ivy League application consultant for students.
What is your favorite thing about working in career services?
Jack Quinn: What I absolutely love about getting to be in career services is that every single thing that we do is designed and geared towards one single goal and that is making sure that you know exactly what you need to do to get hired into IT, to get you into your industry of interest. The team that we have put together that developed this course, which I'm proud to be a founding member of, comes from every single sector in career services. We have professional resume writers who help write our resumes. We have multiple hiring managers who know what they're looking for on those resumes, who know what you need to say during your interviews. We have multiple recruiters, we have people who have done what you're about to do, as their main profession. Every bit of that knowledge we have squeezed as much of it as we can in here. I don't know, man... just getting to help our students, presumably you, achieve your goals, I don't know... that excites me, that's what I love to do.
What has been the most valuable lesson you have learned from your education?
Jack Quinn: Number one, through evidence-based peer review best practices nearly all things are possible. I think this one really boils down to you don't have to reinvent the wheel. For nearly every problem out there, there is a solution that's close to optimal, that's nearly completely solved. We can invest in lifting these amazing solutions that others have poured their profession, their life, their experience into discovering. We can take that make it our own and repurpose it towards our ends. How this relates to our core is that you've had people who specialize in this stuff, spend their time to steal what they know into simple, not easy, but simple steps to follow. I think that leads us into the second most important thing I've learned through my education. Whereas, the faith in peer review and not reinventing the wheel comes from my graduate studies, this is one that my mom just instilled in me from the beginning. She was a Special Ed Teacher, that is the subject she taught in elementary school. One of the things that she drilled into me is that if one person can learn something, it's teachable. It's a skill that anyone can acquire if it's explained simply and step-by-step. Now, the reason this was something that was really important for me to learn is, I am not the brightest crayon in the box. I'm not saying that to be humble, I'm not saying that to be flip, I'm saying it because it was one of those things really internalizing this belief that if someone else can do it that I can do it too even as an average person, it empowered me. It allowed me to use what strengths I have tenacity, curiosity, and the will to practice those individual steps along the way to get to where I needed to be. The reason why I bring this up is I think we are going to ask you to do some things that might be new to you, that might be uncomfortable, or that maybe even on this journey there might be times of doubt. I think it's important to remember that you're at a place that produces this success, right? That gets students through these certifications, that finds their placements, that there's a system that if you follow it, is going to get you to where you want to be.
What's something you want students to know about you?
Jack Quinn: I'm a career changer, just like you. Throughout my career I have bounced around a lot. We talked a little bit about switching stuff around in college. I have changed from country to country from teaching English, teaching elementary social studies, reading, then science, I've been a teacher trainer, a curriculum designer. When I went to the nonprofit and tech startup world... man, did I get to learn a lot of new things! Hiring manager, operations manager, technical curriculum lead, and an interviewer. I've been around the block, and I feel like it's kind of an honor to get to pay forward all the gifts that have been given to me by mentors, by true leaders, by servant leaders who invested their time to develop me and to kind of paint the path forward for where I wanted to go in my life. Of course, the hardest teacher of all probably would be experience, right? I've done these things. Maybe most importantly, more than the fact that I've kind of been in what I assume to be most of your situations, rather recently, I just want you to know that I'm in your corner. I am here to help you meet your goals, and when I do, because I am, I'm gonna be there smiling, celebrating, giving you a round of applause. Yes. Did you get it? It's a round of applause. I was an elementary school teacher, we'll let the dad jokes go, but I want you to know that I'm looking for you to be successful.
What advice would you give to students starting out in the IT industry?
Jack Quinn: The definition of luck at least in my humble opinion is that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Together that is when people get lucky, right? The reason why I share that definition is because we're gonna ask you to prepare a lot. Our class is gonna be very active, your other classes are gonna be really active. There's gonna be a lot of studying, there's gonna be a lot of things that you are going to have to prepare yourself to do and they're gonna prepare you to make this leap to bridge where you are now to where you want to be. The reason why we have all of this preparation, all of these steps, this entire system is so that when you get into that interview room or get that phone call, when you have that opportunity you are ready to seize it, to capitalize on it, to leverage it to get you to where you wanna be and it works man.
