The question of legacy is one that I found particularly interesting because my professional trajectory has been a bit unique, and I find that as result this does mean that the way I interact in different situations is often quite different to my colleagues and peers. In many ways, I’ve always been the odd one out and bring, not necessarily a dissenting opinion, but a different lens.
I did my undergraduate studies in Computer Science (Software Design). My interest was primarily in logic and the beauty and puzzle of algorithm design. Another interest of mine has always been language, so computational linguistics seemed like a natural next step. So I moved to Edinburgh to embark on a Masters in Computational Linguistics. And I hated it from day 1. My love of language is rooted in the social and cultural nuances of language – Computational Linguistics stripped all of that out and left structure, devoid of context and history. I spent the first 2 months of my program avoiding class and perusing the university bookstore – particularly the Anthropology texts. I reached out to the Social Anthropology department and requested a late term transfer, which was granted only weeks from the end of the term, meaning I had to power through papers on War, Ethnographic Writing, and Anthropological Theory. My second term, a calmer term, I took courses in Language, Ritual and the Invention of History. These courses have had a lasting impact on my worldview – understanding how culture is constructed and embedded in every facet of our lives.
After finishing that program, I moved to Spain to get qualifications in English Language Teaching – again a life defining experience. This launched nearly a decade of English Language Teaching and Curriculum Development, first in South Korea, then back in Canada. I worked in International Education, developing digital programs and continued my studies through the Open University, studying Education and Applied Linguistics. Through my research, I learned how to understand the social function of language, which has since changed the way I understand discourse, human interaction and the construction of knowledge. (Another side effect is that I’m now constantly analysing messaging or conversation, and spend too much time writing and rewriting emails to change my tone or the underlying connotations of text. My love of language has only grown!)
Now, I am working in a role that exists happily at the intersection of all of my past experiences and knowledge. This isn’t necessary “where I come from”, but it’s how I got here.
I can appreciate the significant impact that disciplinary background can have on research and even just communication. Working now in medical education, I’ve been required to learn yet another “language” to be granted entry into the community of Medical Education practitioners. Coming in an outsider has been a fascinating experience, (I kept referring to it as an ethnographic experiment). In this context, fundamental knowledge from other fields are often viewed as novel ideas when reframed within a medical context. This had really highlighted for me the interesting problem of silos of knowledge being created by distinct disciplines – which has made me particularly interested by the knowledge that can exist “in between” communities of practice, and the challenge of doing productive knowledge work in that in between.