First Day ...Again
Download MP3It's the first day of school, and I'm walking around downtown Chicago with 100 of other students. There's a little bit of tension in the air, a little bit of excitement. It's the first time anyone's been back on campus in almost 2 years because of the pandemic. As I walk around and try to get my bearings, I can see other classmates reuniting, everyone trying to high five or hug with some kind of weird social distance awareness happening. 2 years is a long time.
David Geisler:The thing is, for me, it's been
David Geisler:a little longer.
David Geisler:My immediate destination is the Columbia College office that will provide me with my student ID. ID. Main entrance on Wabash. Okay. I'm heading to Wabash.
David Geisler:We had IDs the last time I was here, but now it's quite different. I definitely wasn't aware of this, but I'm told that I need this ID card to get into any of the buildings on campus. That's different. The last time I was here, we just walked into whatever building we wanted to. So it looks like okay.
David Geisler:I me and Wells Checking my map here real quick. As I navigate downtown Chicago, it becomes incredibly clear how long it's been since I've walked these streets. I can vaguely recognize the blocks. I remember there used to be, like, a subway down the street, and now it looks like that's a bank. All the trees are bigger.
David Geisler:That's the that's the weirdest thing is there's more trees, which I guess is good. More trees, more video screens, more bike lanes, and definitely more GPS navigation. Looks like I go up one more block. Looks so different down here. I think it's it's odd.
David Geisler:It's like I can kind of recognize I see some Columbia buildings. My confidence increases as I get closer to my destination. In fact, I think I'm starting to feel kind of excited to be back. Not too many people get an opportunity like this. My attention slowly shifts from the map on my phone screen to the city around me.
David Geisler:I start to get a little giddy, if I'm being honest. I tighten up the straps on my backpack. Yes, I'm wearing a backpack for the first time in over a decade. And I walk around the corner to find the entrance to the office that I need to be at. Okay.
David Geisler:I'm going in. Oh my gosh. There's a line. There's a big line. There's a huge line.
David Geisler:There's a line that's, like, a block long. Excuse me. What's this line for? Is it to get your ID or whatever? Your campus card?
David Geisler:Okay. Thank you very much. Oof. Looks like I got a lot to learn. Hi.
David Geisler:My name's David, and when I was 20 years old, I left college for a job, and I did not get my degree. Since then, I've spent most of my adult life navigating a series of failures and successes regarding my career. I have had some adventures, some exhausting, and some exhilarating. But if I'm being honest with myself, not having my degree has been a hindrance. Welcome to returning student.
David Geisler:This is a podcast that I'll be producing over the next 3 years as I return to school. Of course, I'll have a lot of fun documenting my experiences as I navigate a college campus with classmates that are literally half my age, but I'm also excited to use this show to explore some deeper questions. I'll be taking some time to meet with some of my professors, my fellow classmates. I'll even be tracking down and meeting up with some of my previous classmates from the first time I went to school. This is a pretty large decision in my life, a a life changing decision.
David Geisler:I left my job to do this, and truthfully, it's been a very emotional decision. So So I do hope that my conversations with these people will allow me to kind of make sense of of why people make large choices in their life, how they handle those choices, how people find their happiness if they're stuck in a rut. I've spent the better part of my life thinking that school was unnecessary, and I could learn what I needed to learn on the street, so to speak. And as I move through life, I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
David Berner:I think we have done a lot of students wrong by how we, how we teach at the higher level. Public education is absolutely key to our identity as a country because that that's what American education does. It it, it teaches kids to think, hopefully. I I think we are stuck in many ways in the in the same thing we've been doing since the 19 sixties.
Richard Bruck:And right now, I'm in a period where I'm formulating the next the next phase. You know, the next phase of of creative production, for lack of a better term.
David Berner:Instructors, administrators, academia in general has to continually look at this differently.
Richard Bruck:You know, that whole thing is a is a journey unto itself.
Dan McCoy:With all the experiences that you've had with jumping into the professional world now going back, say that you had a 16 year old person standing right in front of you and said, what advice do you have for me? What do you think that you would want them to understand about the college life?
David Geisler:So please join me on this journey that I have in front of me. I am 40 years old, 20 years ago, I left school. My name is David, and I'm a returning student. Okay. Where were we?
David Geisler:The line. The lesson. So I walk down to the end of the line, and I get in line. Feels like a couple kids look at me a little strangely, but that could just be my imagination. I'm a little nervous because it's about a 30 minute red line train ride back to the condo.
David Geisler:And, ironically, my first class of the day isn't actually on campus. It's an online class, which I had planned to take from my computer at home. And about a half an hour ago, 2 hours before my class starts, I realized that I still needed to come downtown to pick up this ID. You know, I I suppose I naively thought that there was an office. There was a place to pick up these cards.
David Geisler:And just like the last 20 adult years of my life, I'd walk into said office, say, I am so and so. Thank you for the card. Have a good day. You know, I I get it though. I guess this is how it works.
David Geisler:It's not like each of these students was emailing back and forth for 2 or 3 weeks with some other person in an office saying, okay. I'll be by on Tuesday at 2 PM. Do you sure are you sure you have the the paperwork? Are you sure you have this file? Okay.
David Geisler:Great. Email it to me, and I'll confirm, and then I'll come pick it up, which oftentimes is what happens in in the workplace and admittedly may be more work than just standing in line for 2 hours. And I'm definitely not saying the school's doing the wrong thing here. It's just I my brain was just working in a different way, you know? Okay.
David Geisler:It's been 30 minutes, and I've just about gotten to the corner. So I've kind of done about a half half a city block in 30 minutes. And I have another 30 minutes in my schedule here to do a full city block. I don't think it's gonna happen. So I am I'm thinking pretty hard right now about how I'm gonna Yeah.
David Geisler:Get to class. It's been 1 hour. It feels like we're moving half a block every 30 minutes. Exactly 2 hours. Okay.
David Geisler:Let's, let's take a second. What am I doing? I'm standing in a street with a bunch of 20 year olds, on the verge of a panic attack because I'm gonna miss this whole thing by missing my first class, and I don't even like school anyway. Well, that's not exactly true. I actually enjoyed Columbia the first time I came here 20 years ago.
David Geisler:It was, you know, it was the school that came before that that was really, really tough for me.
David Berner:You know,
David Geisler:I feel like we're gonna be in this line for a while. I think we actually have a little bit of time here. Why don't we rewind a bit? And I could try to trace how I even got here. When I was in kindergarten, I remember being taken into a special room, kind of in the principal's office, like to the side of the principal's office.
David Geisler:And I
David Geisler:think it was actually the principal that gave me a test along with a counselor. And, they had me, you know, do a series of number based things, a series of images asking me questions about these things and my perceptions of them. And I later learned that they were testing me to go into what was then a new program called the enrichment program. I remember it being pretty weird and pretty scary. As a kid, you're not really sure if you're in trouble, if you're doing something right or wrong.
David Geisler:I do remember later on as I got older I learned that there was one test, I guess, got me into the this program, and it had a man looking at a sunset. And the sun was kind of along the horizon, and the man was looking at the sunset, and the principal or the counselor asked me, do do you see anything wrong with this image? And I couldn't help but notice, but the man's shadow was going towards the sun, not away from the sun. And I think if I remember correctly, even the trees were going the other way, so maybe it was even more obvious. You know, the the trees had shadows in the correct direction, and the man had a shadow going towards the sun.
David Geisler:And later, as I got older, I was told that I was the only kid that, like, guessed that. So in 1st grade, I was put into this enrichment program, but I was still in a regular class. And I think once a week, myself and 2 or 3 other kids, we'd go to the special classroom and do projects that I thought were fantastic, very cool. Definitely wait wait, you know, instead of, like, oh, just do these 5 things on this worksheet, it was much more open ended. They were thought based, kind of, multiple solution type problems that we were solving, And I actually loved going to the enrichment program in 1st grade.
David Geisler:1st grade is also the year that I started to notice that it felt like other kids could read things faster than I could. Then in 2nd grade, I guess the school board had created a permanent program for kids in the enrichment program, and I had to transfer to a different school. And I knew 1 or 2 kids, but I was in a full time permanent, you know, enrichment program classroom setting. I had a hard time. I had a hard time in that class.
David Geisler:I the when we did the projects, I really got excited. But day to day, I was not good at getting my homework done. I remember having a hard time focusing. Even back then, my 2nd grade teacher in a parent teacher conference suggested that I might have, you know, back then I think they only called it ADD. This is 20 years ago, way before it was mega popular to diagnose kids with this.
David Geisler:It's kind of a new thing. I mean, this is late eighties, early nineties. My second grade teacher was very supportive. Her name was missus Walker, And she allowed me to try to perform multiple strategies so that I could stay focused. Sometimes if I couldn't be focused enough, we'd, like, take my desk and I could put it, like, in the corner of the classroom.
David Geisler:In a good way, not a bad way. I didn't feel like I was being excised or anything, but it was the idea that I could kind of focus. Because I mean there was a lot of cool things going on in that classroom. We had a lot of extracurricular projects, and little science projects, and they were always you could kind of look at them up on the shelves, you know, while you're supposed to be, I don't know, reading a paragraph or something. And I also specifically recall in 2nd grade, like, definitively understanding that for some reason, it was like a magic trick.
David Geisler:Everyone else, they would just look at a piece of paper, and they could read what was on the paper. And I really couldn't. I couldn't process that at the time, but, of course, it that was the beginning of of my journey with dyslexia. And so at the end of 2nd grade, even though I did enjoy the experience, I actually chose to go back to the regular school. I chose to exit the enrichment program with the support of my folks and with the support of my teacher too.
David Geisler:I I I remember that year fondly, but, I returned to to regular public school in 3rd grade.
David Geisler:And
David Geisler:So it feels like we're moving half a block every 30 minutes. Maybe a little slower. There's been a little bit of, like, people cutting into the line when they see their friends, but what are you gonna do? I'm a half an hour away from my class starting. It starts at noon, actually, not 12:30 like I thought.
David Geisler:So I'm gonna take it downtown here. I guess what I'll do is I'll I'll sign in to the class through Zoom on my phone and use my, earbuds, AirPods to, you know, hear the class. And then there I saw that the student center is 2 blocks away. The student center. This will become very important later on down the line.
David Geisler:But I think I can find it. I have my laptop with me. Just I brought it all I brought all my stuff with me just in case, and then get out some Wi Fi, hopefully, and I guess just take ironically, take my online class from campus. The student center is one of Columbia's newest buildings. They built it just a few years before I returned.
David Geisler:It's an impressive building, and it truly will become the center of my student experience in the coming weeks. For now, however, let's return to grade and learn how I entered junior high and high school. And things moved along. I did okay in classes. It was always every parent teacher conference was always a mixed bag.
David Geisler:I'd have 2 or 3 subjects that I was getting a's in and then 2 or 3 subjects that I was basically failing. And I I think I confused most of my teachers through grade school. They didn't really exactly know what to do with me. I didn't know what to do with myself. You know, my folks would come home from parent teacher conference, and we'd try to have constructive conversations about some of this stuff.
David Geisler:I don't know. I guess my, like, my skill set was just really unbalanced. You know, and then I survived. I survived through 5th grade and 6th grade. I had a little girlfriend in 6th grade I had a big huge crush on and went into junior high.
David Geisler:And I was very excited about that experience because that's when, you know, other schools mix together and you have a little bit more autonomy. You're moving from class to class to class. I think they call it middle school these days, but for us back then in the mid nineties, it was still the junior high system where it was 7th, 8th, and 9th graders in junior high, and then 10th, 11th, and 12th were in high school, which was always weird to me that the 9th graders were called freshmen still and they were like the big kids in our junior high, but I digress. It was in junior high though that it was ironically it was my home ec teacher that really put her foot down and insisted that I get tested for ADD. I actually really enjoyed Home Ec.
David Geisler:I remember I remember doing my projects. Everyone has to sew a pillow. Everyone has to sew a duffel bag, but I enjoyed it so much. I actually really enjoyed sewing. I enjoyed it so much that, I went to the store and bought an extra project, and it was a teddy bear.
David Geisler:No. It was a gorilla. And I asked if I could make it, and and my teacher, I guess I guess complied and said, yeah, go for it. And I made this this gorilla that all things considered turned out okay and I gave it to my little sister Kimberly. But, you know, that was around 7th grade, and that began my journey with various degrees of medication for to for for my alleged ADD.
David Geisler:And I I when I say alleged, I don't mean any disrespect. I just mean, you know, I don't know. It's not like it's not like someone says, we deem it so, and then you feel different. You still feel you're still the same person that you're still just as confused and just as excited and just as in love and just as afraid of everything else as you've always been. We had a psychologist, I think his name is doctor Young, and he worked in Kenosha.
David Geisler:And he was a very kind soul, honestly. He he even though he was a psychologist, he would still you know, he would hear he would listen to me. I felt like when I was speaking to him about how my days were going, you know, I wasn't laying on a couch or anything because that'd be the other yeah. That'd be the other situation. But I felt like he cared.
David Geisler:He wasn't just, you know, throwing pills in a bottle. So this is maybe around 8th grade where I, was was on a whole we tried everything. It was Ritalin, time release Ritalin, dexedrine, time release dexedrine. There was I think Adderall was kinda just starting, and there might have been there was one that I can't remember, but it started with the letter c or something like that. But we we tried a few of them over the course of, like, two and a half years, maybe 2 years.
David Geisler:And, I had a very complicated relationship with the medication, meaning I think technically it worked. I think technically I was more focused. But from my point of view, it felt like, it felt like I was becoming like, my senses were going down. Like, I couldn't see as much or I couldn't hear as much. Now I don't mean literally.
David Geisler:Not at all. Not literally. But, if you imagine, you know, these you know, how kids will take a paper towel tube and look through it like it's a pirate ship, telescope or something. I really felt like I was going through my days really only paying attention to what was exactly in front of me. And everything else around me was kind of blurry, metaphorically blurry, you know.
David Geisler:I wasn't having any physical side effects except actually, no, I was. I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping very well, but I I almost stopped eating. I wasn't eating at all, and I was five 2 in 5th grade. 5 feet 2 inches in 5th grade.
David Geisler:6, 7th, and 8th, I didn't grow at all. I stayed 5 2. Maybe I got up to 5 4 actually, I think. And my it was weird. My friends were starting to get taller than me.
David Geisler:And I had always been a tall kid. So starting 9th grade, I was starting to do some theater. I was very excited to go to the computer labs and work on computers and stuff like that. And I was involved with my art classes. And a lot of that stuff for me felt like it was, fading away when I was on the medication.
David Geisler:Now granted, if I was going to school for non artistic reasons, I think maybe the medication would have been the right path for me. At least the direction that I was, allowing myself to be led, it it it didn't quite line up. And I hesitate to speak about this because I'm not exactly against medication. It's just for me, it didn't feel like the solution that I wanted. So when we started 9th grade, I spoke with my folks and I said, I think I want to stop taking any kind of medicine.
David Geisler:Probably my grades will go down. Probably it'll be quote unquote harder for me, but, there's other parts of my life that I really that are that I'm starting to recognize are special to me and I want them to be a part of my life. And, you know, I'm very grateful my folks supported the choice. And so that informed my choice in 9th grade to go back to being a person who was just simply going to live my life, dealing with my strengths and my weaknesses. 2 hours have gone by.
David Geisler:I'm about 15 feet away from the door. Best I can tell, the line pretty much stops on the inside of that door. It's been a heck of a morning. You know, for the past couple days, I was pretty much preparing myself emotionally to get ready to go back to class after 20 years. I never imagined that I'd I'd be also trying to juggle going to class on a phone while I stand in a city street waiting for a card, trying to figure out if I could get Wi Fi and still get to the class.
David Geisler:It's, it's taking a toll, I have to be honest. But I keep my spirits up. I think I might pull this off. I actually had a small error. I tried logging into my Zoom at 12, and my, it kept saying, you know, oh, the host is still please wait for the host to start the meeting.
David Geisler:And I thought, oh, no. I might really miss out. And then I confirmed on my calendar on an app called Canvas, which is, an app that, like, shows you all your, like, all your in you know, all the things you need to about your classes. It's actually awesome. It said that my class was at 12:30, which is cool.
David Geisler:So it's 12:20 right now, and I'm I'll still try to log in to my class at 12:30, and I'm gonna walk straight over to the student center, which I think I checked Google Maps, and it's 2 blocks south of me. I'm pretty confident they have Wi Fi there, and I guess I'll take my my class there. For now, just wanna get this just wanna get this taken care of. So I'll tell I'll let you know what the final time is. I might it might be really awkward.
David Geisler:I might have to log in to my class while I'm, like, just about to get my ID. High school got a little weirder. I got very involved in theater, and I got very involved in the computer labs and the graphic design departments and stuff like that. So in many ways in high school, I did find the things that spoke to my strengths and the things that it was kind of okay to have a mind that bounces around here and there and gets new ideas every 10 seconds and all of that. Because in an artistic environment, at least in my opinion, it's not a bad way to be.
David Geisler:However, of course, the pattern, came back. Half my classes and in this case, every class is a different teacher, so half my teachers were failing me and half my teachers were giving me As. And that's not an exaggeration. I'd have 1 or 2 teachers that would I'd have a really positive relationship with. You know, actually I shouldn't even word it that way because I had a I feel like I had a mostly positive relationship with all of my teachers.
David Geisler:I actually enjoyed most of the classes, but I ended up barely graduating high school not because I was getting bad grades all across the board, but I was getting good grades and some really bad grades. I was I was getting F's and D's. It was rough. It was bad. At the time, I didn't really understand.
David Geisler:For me, I wasn't prioritizing GPA because I was thinking I would just go to an art school or something like that. And so that led to my journey to find an appropriate college because plenty of universities and colleges flat out wouldn't take me because of that GPA, which I didn't realize as I was leaving school. You learn these things as you go. But some did. I, auditioned for some theater majors in Oshkosh, Stevens Point.
David Geisler:We considered SUNY Purchase over in near New York. And then one night, my family attended we it was like a group of theater kids. It was almost like a family field trip where our main theater director, her name was Holly Stanfield, she organized this event for any of the theater kids and their parents to drive up to Milwaukee. We'd all kind of drive our own cars, but all park in the same place and go into this. It wasn't a job fair.
David Geisler:It was kind of a college fair, basically. But, you know, there was tables and booths set up all over the place. You walk around and speak to each school and see if you could like you kind of do a little vibe check and see if it was some a place that you would be interested in. You know I remember one thing that was kind of strange. As soon as we walked in, we turned the corner and Columbia had its booth set up in this, you know, event hall.
David Geisler:And who I don't even know the man who was sitting at that table. I I can't even remember what he looks like, but I can remember the conversation we had and we started speaking about movies, and I started talking about computer graphics. And, you know, and the first Jurassic Park had come out just a couple years before. And we were talking a lot about film. And not not just film, but like the making of film.
David Geisler:And I remember thinking, I think I'm going to school for theater, but if I wanna make films, this could be really cool. This would be the school to do it and I had already had a small love affair with Chicago. I hadn't been here that much but I have a little confession I used to in my, you know, parents ranch house in Kenosha, Wisconsin, I had a little I think it was like a 8 foot by 11 foot bedroom with with a window. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I'm saying this right now.
David Geisler:Many a night, I would, basically pretend that I was in a studio apartment, like in a high rise in Chicago. You know, you just low key to yourself. I started buying some extra pillows for my bedroom, maybe an extra lamp, started doing a little bit of interior design beyond what a normal kid would do, just making sure the posters they like are up. Because I was starting to feel like an adult. I wanted to have, like, an adult, lifestyle, I guess.
David Geisler:I was looking forward to that that that adventure. So getting back to the college fair, in Milwaukee, we walked around, and I I remember going to a couple other tables with some of my other friends, and we I think, actually, we did speak to the Stevens Point people. And some of the rest of it was a blur, because I kept thinking about that Columbia table. And finally, I found my way back to the Columbia table. I don't know.
David Geisler:Maybe I was just doing another lap or something, and I chatted with this guy for half an hour easily. And it wasn't just it wasn't like nerdy film stuff. It wasn't like wasn't this part cool when this happened? We were talking about the process and I didn't know I had this in me. I mean I shot like home videos, you know, with our little Hi8 camera and stuff and mini DV cameras back when I was in junior high and high school, but it kind of awoke something in me where I realized that I was really excited about this.
David Geisler:This being filmmaking and and I guess by extension media production, even beyond performing on a stage. Well, the night ended, and we all drove home. And I guess a few days later, maybe it was a month later, who who cares? I I think it was my dad said to my mom, at least this is how this is the story I've heard. Did you see how Dave lit up when he was at that Columbia College table?
David Geisler:And you know, I'm getting a little choked up right now because, Columbia certainly, you know, my my I'm very proud of both of my parents. And they made the decision to go down to a single income, while we were in school. And so it was only my father's income and he had a respectable job at corporate Snap on Tools in downtown Kenosha.
David Geisler:But I
David Geisler:think we all knew that Colombia was was a was higher was was was higher up in the budget than what we were planning for. So I did have to start the class on my phone while I grabbed my ID, and I walked the 2 blocks south to the student center. I took the class there for 3 hours, and when I was done, I packed up my bag and headed back to the red line. I thought I'd be taking the red line home 4 hours ago. Okay.
David Geisler:I just left the Columbia student lounge. It was very cool. It's a cool building. Looks great, actually. I think it's actually really well designed.
David Geisler:Good areas for studying. Good areas for group conversations. They have some meeting rooms up on the second, third floor. Honestly, I'm really impressed. But, boy, I did not expect to take that class in that building.
David Geisler:It was really it was really, really interesting because I was obviously a little stressful getting into the class because I wasn't sure how attendance was gonna work. I wasn't sure was there a piece of software that was gonna dock me if I logged into Zoom 5 minutes late or something? It didn't seem like that was the case. Our professor did a, kind of an old school roll call, which I was able to say here too a few minutes later. And so I'm taking you know, the first five, ten minutes of the class, I'm literally listening on my phone, kind of like holding it out in front of me like I'm doing an awkward FaceTime or something, kind of hearing the class on my AirPods.
David Geisler:I'm honestly really embarrassed. I don't think anybody cared too much, but you get the idea. So at first, I was having kind of an emotional reaction to the class. I got into the student center trying to get my computer plugged in, trying to find a space to be, but you're also in this kind of public space that's really uncomfortable and awkward. And, the first, like, 15 minutes of class, I legitimately was thinking that I I I like I honestly, I was like, oh, I hate this.
David Geisler:I was thinking, oh, I I remember why I hate school. And it you know, and my professor, Diane, I I forget her last name right now, but, she was perfectly pleasant. She was great, but it was it was just odd. You know, this this this Zoom stuff is weird. It's you're at first, you're not really can't really see people's faces.
David Geisler:You can't you're not you know, there's something about being able to, like, be in the room with someone, see their cheeks move, and see their, I guess, lips move and stuff like that and see their eyebrows move. And it's it's so there's so much more information that you can get from someone than, like, looking at these weird, almost profile photos, almost like moving profile photos of people with with gray walls behind them. But everyone was cool. And so, anyway, I was thinking like, oh my god. Not only do I hate school, this is is this what it's gonna be?
David Geisler:And I think it's only this class. I think the others are mostly all in in classrooms. And I gotta be honest. I was really wondering if I made a mistake do choosing to do this.
David Geisler:So I'm just
David Geisler:I'm kinda almost got a little lost here. So, like, physically lost as I tell my little story as I walk around. Oh, boy. It is fun being down here though, isn't it? The l train's right above me right now.
David Geisler:This is the green line. The green line's going over me, and it's something that is really cool is being down here for a reason for a for a life reason. I like that. I'm gonna get I'm gonna get into the red line stuff pretty quickly and get home. Oh my gosh.
David Geisler:I'm walking past the student ID center. It's still long. It's only about a half a block now, not a block and a half, but it's still going. Oh, different now this is the, orange line. The orange line is going over me now.
David Geisler:Okay. Time to get home. Time to get home. Well, I got through that. My first day back, my first class back.
David Geisler:It definitely didn't go the way I expected it to and it certainly didn't go the way I remembered it. But I'm starting to realize that I think there's going to be a lot of things that are nothing like the way I remember them to be. But there's so much more to talk to you about. I mean, I haven't even mentioned my fiancee yet. She is the reason I'm returning to school.
David Geisler:And I'll be honest, when she first approached me about the whole idea, I was a little less than enthusiastic about it. But we'll get to all of that over the next couple episodes. For now, let's take a break, and when returning student returns, I'll quit my
David Geisler:job.
Mid Roll Promo:Hello, and welcome to Game Dev Hideout. My name is Daniel, and I am excited to introduce our new 65 Show. Joining me is my co host, Chris, as we drop down the ladder and give you a look into the indie game development community. We'll introduce you to lots of cool game developers, pixel artists, musicians, and other members of the indie dev community. We hope you'll climb on up and check out some games.
David Geisler:I'm on Lakeshore Drive in the car driving to work right now, and this is this is the day that I'll be officially submitting my 2 weeks notice. If I'm being honest, I feel very excited right now. I kind of I've had
David Geisler:a few months to emotionally prepare for this change.
David Geisler:Welcome back to Returning Student. I'm currently in the car driving to a job that I've had for the past couple years. I moved back to Chicago about 5 years ago. Previously, I spent almost a decade living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city about an hour and a half and one state north of Chicago. During that time, I was working as a graphic designer for the creative operations department at SC Johnson.
David Geisler:I liked the job, I liked it a lot, and I liked Milwaukee too, But I did miss Chicago. So when the creative operations department was outsourced at SC Johnson and I was out of a job, it was a no brainer to try to get back to Chicago. I figured bigger city, more people, more opportunities. I fumbled around for about a year, getting a couple design gigs here and there. Nothing nothing impactful.
David Geisler:And, you know, I'm realizing right now as I record this in this studio that, it probably would have been a little easier to get a design job had I had my degree. But I didn't, and things started to get tight. So in a couple weeks, I won't be on Lakeshore Drive heading downtown. I'll probably be on the red line heading in. Honestly, I might be on Lakeshore Drive because I hopefully will be, like, biking to work a little bit.
David Geisler:Oh, my gosh. Did you hear what I just said? Biking to work. I'm gonna bike to school. I think that'll be fun.
David Geisler:I'm I am really excited about spending a little bit more time down town. Things got so tight that I just needed a job anywhere. And one day, I thought, you know what? What if I just try to get a job at the Target down the street? And that is the job I'm driving to right now.
David Geisler:My job is just outside of downtown right now. So I drive in on Lakeshore right around by link the Lincoln Park. Zoo is where I actually have to head start heading west a little bit. And I'm actually coming up on that stop right now. So, yeah.
David Geisler:Right now, my feelings are pretty much overwhelming excitement. Rush because my emotions about my time at Target will swing in every direction over the next 2 weeks. Yeah. So getting hired at Target was pretty trippy for me. I went to the standard Target website and went to careers, and then I found this store that was located a few blocks away from where I was.
David Geisler:And, it was basically a Target in Logan Square here in Chicago. And unbeknownst to me at the time, this is, like, the 2nd largest target in the country. I think back in the eighties nineties, it was the largest. I had idea what I was getting myself into, and so I applied for a position there and received a phone call that, got me set up with an interview. It was, like, 2 weeks later.
David Geisler:I also didn't know it at the time, but this was, like, an a big interview day because, definitely, I was there and, you know, 20 or 30 other people were also clearly being interviewed that day for a lot of different departments and stuff like that. So I went in, and they had me sit in the cafeteria area, kind of the break room of this Target, and I could tell that there were other people there, for for interviews as well. Basically, anybody not in a red shirt was there for an interview. So so I first my first interview was with a team lead, just kinda like a manager, in the elect from the electronics department. And he interviewed me, and I guess, you know, things went well.
David Geisler:We got along, and he asked me to stick around. And then I was interviewed by an executive team lead. Her name was Becky. She was actually a senior executive team lead, which I don't think that position exists lot of her style. I think she liked my vibe, and she there was kind of a funny moment where I went in with my resume that I had been using for trying to get design jobs and all that kind of stuff.
David Geisler:You know, I had stuff like SC Johnson on there, and I had previously worked for the Oprah Show for a couple years after college. And so it was like a you know, it's kind of a good resume, actually. And so then there's this funny moment where she kind of sets the resume down, looks at me, and she says, okay. Why is a 36 year old man with a resume like this here for an interview at this store? You know, something like that.
David Geisler:And I was honest with her. I just said, well, I've been working as a designer. I've worked in media, and, just times are tough right now. And so I'm looking for a job. And so because I had mentioned that I make podcasts and stuff, she she ended up deciding that I should probably go into the electronics department because I knew a little bit about at least the microphones and the computers and the things they sold in that area.
David Geisler:I was fine with it. She also mentioned that it was very likely that I'd be kind of fast tracked onto a manager path at the store, because of my experience, and so I that was definitely a motivator for me. And so, the store director, Lee, and Becky, they're pretty clear with me. They said, okay. We think you have the future here, but you don't know anything about Target.
David Geisler:I was like, fair enough. It was clear that I had some management experience, but I really had had really zero retail experience. In fact, I hadn't worked retail since I was 19 years old when I folded clothes in a Banana Republic, so I worked on the floor for 6 months. You know, that first day, there I was standing behind the counter in the electronics department, almost 40, with people that were at 20. Woah.
David Geisler:Is this a theme in my life? I may have to think about that a little bit, But, I was I was getting paid, you know, 50¢ over minimum wage, and I was so grateful, so happy to be doing it. And I was just just just selling Nintendo Switches and iPhone cases to anybody who came in, tried to help people if they had technical questions. I learned a lot about televisions, a lot of questions about televisions that I had to answer. Anyways, weirdly, I mean, I kind of enjoyed it.
David Geisler:It was strange. It was such a well, it wasn't strange. It was just such a it was such a pivot for me, something that I wasn't used to. After about 6 months, I was promoted to a team lead position. And, oh, I don't know, about 6 months after that, maybe a little little bit more, I was offered, an executive team lead position in the service engagement department, and I was kinda really getting into it.
David Geisler:I mean, I was kinda starting to take my job pretty seriously. Once you're an executive team lead at at a target, your your salary, your dealing you're doing all the hiring and the firing and all that stuff for your department. You're dealing with, you know, what what corporate and what the what the, regional managers want you to do. And even though it was a job that I never visualized I would have had, I hired a lot of really good people, and I feel like I worked pretty hard to put some systems in order. And you start to become proud of what you've done.
David Geisler:Oh, by the way, I got the service and engagement executive team lead position a month before Chicago shut down for COVID. And, of course, Target was essential, so we did not shut down. It was it was pretty crazy. We had to do all of the the spacing and the lines, and every day, there was a new procedure, stickers, and all that stuff. Every day was was pretty intense, hiring extra people to wipe everything down.
David Geisler:It was this was during that when when COVID was we didn't have a vaccine or anything yet, and COVID was pretty real pretty real and pretty scary. So long story short, there was a lot of bonding that happened. I felt like I bonded with the people I hired. I felt like I bonded with my superiors. The store director Lee and I still speak to this day.
David Geisler:It was very difficult to tell him that I was choosing to leave. I did feel that Target was investing in me. Before I this idea of going back to school, I I really kind of thought. I thought, well, I guess my forties fifties are just gonna be working at a target. I it was emotional.
David Geisler:It was emotional choosing to leave, choosing to to to do school. It was scary. I will say that in the retail space, if you're working in retail, I actually enjoyed my time with Target. And I've heard horror stories about other companies, and I have no idea if they're true or not. But I felt that all things considered, Target was a good company to work for.
David Geisler:It had nothing to do with my passions. It had nothing to do with why I woke up in the morning. I was able to use my management skills, and I was able to use my producer skills and kind of translate them into leading these teams. And I was in charge of service and engagement, so all of the unhappy customers and stuff, they would come to me, and I had no problem navigating that. I mean, I was comfortable doing it.
David Geisler:It was you know, you just you listen to people, and you do try to actually solve their problems. And and the most of the time, it it works out. Okay. It is July 21st, 9 49 AM, and I am going into my Workday account. I have to log in real quick.
David Geisler:Okay. I'm in Workday, and I just checked in with HR because I've never left a job this way before. And I'm going to my profile, and then they said go to actions. I'm going down to job change, and here it is, resign. Okay.
David Geisler:So I'm going to click resign. Proposed termination date. I'm gonna do 2 weeks from now. Okay. Primary reason, voluntary voluntary resign.
David Geisler:Okay. There we go. Secondary reasons. I don't think I have any secondary reasons. Alright.
David Geisler:Okay. So here we are. It says, after completing this resignation, it will be routed to your manager. Your Workday account will be deactivated 11:45 PM on the termination date. Okay.
David Geisler:I'm moving my mouse over the submit button, and I'm going to click it. I'm feeling a little nervous right now. Very excited. There have been many moments of, like, not going back. We've already done our first payment for school.
David Geisler:I've worked at this job for 3 years. It was a very interesting adventure, and and here we go and clicked. I just clicked the submit button. You have submitted details and process. Process successfully completed for David Geisler.
David Geisler:Overall process, submit resignation. Overall status, successfully completed. Proposed to termination date, August 4, 2021. Primary reason, voluntary resign. Initiate determination.
David Geisler:Position, ETL service and engagement. Manager Lee Crum. Okay. Well, you know, it's interesting. You get a little sentimental when you do these kinds of things.
David Geisler:I clicked a button, and this ball is rolling. I think right now, just because that was kind of like a heavy a heavy thing to do, I've never really, I guess, left a job in this manner before. I'm really excited about what's coming up next. I'm really excited about future jobs I'll get. I'm really excited about the things I'm gonna learn at school.
David Geisler:And, I do know that for the past 3 years, I've worked really hard to make this job be as much as it could be, and I've just said goodbye to that by clicking this button. This season on Returning Student. You're married with kids now. That's a thing.
Alex Hahn:Yeah.
David Geisler:I mean, that's an exciting adventure. This is just this one's pretty vague. This is like Monday responses number 3.
David Berner:Because academia can be just so everybody wants to put everybody on the back. Drives me nuts. I can get into that in another podcast sometime.
David Geisler:Okay. I definitely
David Geisler:went to the wrong building.
David Geisler:Class is starting right now. I gotta figure out where I'm going.
Speaker 7:I really felt fortunate in the PhD program at the time. Not only was I getting an education for free, but I was making an income.
Speaker 7:Because I
David Geisler:also don't wanna procrastinate, but I there's just, like, I have, like, 2 hard deadlines that have to go out tomorrow.
Marvin Modder:And there's a lot of arguing and debate about exactly what the curriculum should consist of. But I I think most teachers kinda feel like, hey, You guys need to do what you do, and we'll do what we do.
Richard Bruck:I realize that you can't set your sights low. You can't say, well, I'm gonna have a business just this big so it does just just what I need it to do. No. You have to go all out, and then hopefully, it'll last long enough that you'll be able to focus on what you want to.
David Geisler:Thank you for joining me for this first episode. I feel like we got a lot of the introduction stuff out of the way. I feel like at this point, you know how I got here. In episode 2, you'll learn a little bit about why I got here. My fiance and I will pick my classes, and I'll receive my first syllabus.
David Geisler:You'll learn a little bit about the stakes that are at play. For example, I did leave school for a job 20 years ago, but I did not leave school with a particularly good GPA, and that means that I'll be reentering school with a certain set of conditions set. However, on a more exciting note, I will attend my second class in 20 years, which will actually be my first class on campus. That class will be intro to radio taught by David Boerner. David Berner currently works at WBBM as well as being a professor at Columbia.
David Geisler:And in the next episode, I'll meet with him in his office at Columbia to sit down and talk about his thoughts on higher education. It was an interesting conversation, one of many, many that I will have on this show. And if you're looking for a little bit of a teaser, you've actually heard David Berner's thoughts twice in this episode already. This whole podcast is a little bit of an experiment for me, and I hope you're enjoying it. Some episodes will be mostly interviews, others will be storytelling, some will be a little bit of both.
David Geisler:A lot has changed in 20 years, and ultimately, my goal with this project is to collect and aggregate thoughts and opinions of these people that I'm just meeting or already knew, people that I respect, to see if I can kind of meditate on those thoughts and create my own opinion on what education is anyway. Returning Student is a production of 65 Media. You can find the show notes for this episode on our website, returningstudent.com. The show is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, David Geisler. Links to the music used in this episode can be found in our show notes as well as on our website.
David Geisler:If you liked the show, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends. I'm gonna be doing this for a couple years, so let's find out together how all this is gonna go. You can follow the show on Twitter and Instagram at returning student. That's student spelled s t d t. Alright.
David Geisler:I'm David Geisler, and I'll see you on the next episode of Returning Student.
Creators and Guests
