Deann hurtado
Associate Professor, Business Information Systems

I've been teaching full-time at Sinclair Community College for just a short while. Before I began full-time teaching, I was in marketing and sales in the computer industry. I learned many things throughout those years, but the most important thing I learned is that life is short. If you don't enjoy what you do, you need to change what you do. (Ever heard that before?) Well, I didn't really enjoy what I did, so I quit. At the time my children were tiny and my husband was traveling 40 weeks out of the year and we had to eat lots of mac 'n' cheese. I didn't really enjoy that either, but I knew my kids needed me more than the business world did, so I stayed home. Then, out of the blue one of my former bosses called to ask if I would contract for her doing what I used to do fulltime. This time, I could work from home on the computer they would provide for me. How could I turn that down? And so my career began as a contractor.

One day I was wishing out loud to my husband and told him what I really enjoyed was teaching. I wanted to become a full-time professor, but I didn't know how to get my foot in the door. He actually laughed at me and said, "What do you think they're going to do? Call you out of the blue?" Well, that did sound a little absurd, so I just continued to pray about it. Wouldn't you know…in about two months I received a phone call (out of the blue) asking if I wanted to develop and teach a course at Sinclair. As they say, the rest is history. Now, I love what I do. It is a perfect job to balance family and work, plus I get to socialize with my students all day long! What a job. The moral of the story is to not be afraid of changing what you don't like in your life. Then, have the courage to believe you can do something different, get the education and background necessary to pursue your dreams, and dare to dream big!