Emery Graham: MPS Devcom Graduates with Distinction
Emery Graham, City of Wilmington, Delaware’s Economic Development Research Planner, is enrolled in the Master of Professional Studies in Development Communication program under the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies. He is one of UPOU’s foreign-based students.
He’s been professionally and academically involved in all phases of development work for more than twenty-five years. He has taught secondary school among marginalized population of urban and rural America, financed and built low-income housing and he also implemented health and social services programs.
When asked why he chose UPOU out of all the universities in the world, he wrote in his email that UPOU’s offerings were most attractive to him. He chose UPOU because of the Development Communications curriculum content, the convenience of the distance learning format, and the excellent tuition rates. Graham also added the he never imagined that the field of Development Communications would present the synthesis of theory and practice that would prove to be relevant to his practical development challenges.
The readily available information on development communication, application forms, course descriptions, course offering schedules and the reasonable price of tuition fees were his reasons for enrolling in UPOU. His most memorable and rewarding experience as a UPOU student was reading the discussion board comments made by his fellow students and the revelations he had regarding the similarities in their social and cultural perspectives. He also used the discussion board as a tool to express himself clearly and from the heart. He also added that he receives some really good feedback and shared perspectives with a few of his classmates.
He also added that he has been encouraging his friends and relations to take a look at UPOU’s offerings and considers UPOU as one of the best educational institutions in the world. Graham also suggested that UPOU should reach to the Filipinos working abroad to support them in building a competitive advantage in their field of work by using UPOU to update their skills and broaden their knowledge. He also noted that UPOU should partner with an American academic institution to begin exploring its full potential as a world class academic institution.
And as a parting word from Emery Graham, he said: “work hard to overcome the doubts and misgivings generated by fatigue and challenge.”(Meg Jarmin, FICS)
