# With Eyes Wide Open

Lorrie King, International Emergency Management Student Association
Member, Arkansas Tech University, Emergency Administration and
Management

I am sitting in Psychology of Adjustment. It is Saturday morning and we
are the only class in Witherspoon Building. I left my house at 8:00am so
that I would have plenty of time for the 45 mile drive and be in my seat
by 9:00. I am a dedicated and highly unusual student. Well...not really.
As much as I would like to give you the impression that I am above
average what I described is actually pretty normal for an emergency
management student. The student population comprising the emergency
management field is without a doubt a breed apart, in fact we are a new
breed altogether.

Emergency management students are often as not considered
non-traditional. That is, we are not fresh out of high school. Many of
us have been out in the world and had a taste of real work. A large
percentage of students have stumbled into emergency management quite by
accident. They might have volunteered for a fire department, worked with
the Red Cross, or like myself had the safety job at a local factory fall
into their lap. I can say from experience that it is a great thing to
finally find your place in life. And once the emergency management bug
bites you, there is no turning back. When I finally figured out that I
found a job I love doing, and there was a degree program geared toward
that job, it was as if a light had come on in a dark room.

When I graduated high school in 1989, I could not have chosen Emergency
Administration and Management (EAM) as my major. Fortunately for all of
the other EAM students and myself that opportunity now exists. Most of
the EAM classes are tailored towards those folks who are already out
there scraping by in the real world. Night classes, weekend classes, and
you have to love them, Internet classes. Like many of my colleagues, I
have pursued my EAM degree while holding down a full-time 45 plus hour a
week job. I cannot stress enough that this is pretty much normal for
those of us in the program. We study, work, go to school, and for fun we
squeeze in as many hands on training sessions as possible.

What does this mean for you as an emergency manager in the field? No
longer do you have to search vainly for that person your staff
desperately needs. No longer do you have to wade through pools of
untrained candidates knowing full well that you will have to spend
countless hours of your own time training, teaching, and hoping once you
have pounded some knowledge into them they will stick with the field.

You have before you an elite order of students that understand the
intricacies of emergency management. We cut our freshmen teeth on
mitigation, planning, response and recovery. We have portfolios stuffed
with Red Cross, FEMA, Department of Labor, and OSHA certificates. We
have spent time in the emergency management field fulfilling
internships. The emergency management students are custom prepped for
you. We are eager to join the ranks of emergency managers after much
thought, conscious decision, and a lot of very hard work. We know how to
make sacrifices and achieve goals. The graduates are red-hot, fired-up,
and we know what we are getting into. We have been trained and educated.
We have experienced trial by fire if you will.

So as I sit here on a Saturday morning learning about psychology and
mentally applying it to what I know about emergency management, we can
both rest easier. I know that you are out there and you need me. And you
know that finally, we are here. We are reading the books you have
written and following the road you have paved. We are learning from the
trials you have lived through. We know without a doubt what we are
getting into and we are eager. We are ready to jump in with eyes wide
open.