Finding the Right Fit: Lauren and Learning Lab

Lauren Mason is often the first face families see when they walk into Learning Lab Wichita, and her warmth, organization and care help set the tone for a positive experience.

Behind the scenes, Lauren plays a vital role in keeping Learning Lab moving forward, combining relationship-building and project management to support our community of students, families and educators.

But, like many people, Lauren did not always know what path she wanted her career to take. An internship at Learning Lab provided a twist she never saw coming.

In this episode of Let's Get Personal, Lauren shares how working in the right environment helped her find fulfillment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, I'm Lydia and I'm Kristen. Through our work at Learning Lab, which talk, we get a front-row speed to innovation and personalized kindergarten through 12th grade learning. On this podcast, we share stories of how educators and parents are helping kids discover their passions. So you can do the same for a child you love.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Time to dive in. Let's get personal. Hello. Welcome to Let's Get Personal, Real Talk about Reimagining Education. Today is a very fun day in the studio. Well, except for the fact that Lydia is missing. So you just get me, Kristen, and our guest today is Lauren Mason, which is very exciting to say because she just got married, who is our special projects administrator here at Learning Lab Wichita. And um, Lauren is the only member of our team at this point that hasn't been on the podcast. And so we've been wanting to get her on the podcast. And so we're super excited to have her. She's very important to what we do at Learning Lab Wichita. So, Lauren, to get started, why don't you just maybe tell give us a short introduction of yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Sure. Um, my name is Lauren. I'm the special projects administrator at Learning Lab Wichita. Um, I deal with a lot of our memberships. So onboarding, offboarding members, um, and everything in between, showing them the space, how things work. And I also do project management for our team.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Which is my favorite part and my least favorite part. You're very good at it. Thank you. Um, so fun, like personal connection to me is that I've known of Lauren since she was very small. Um, so Lauren's stepmom, Ashley Watkins, who actually was on the podcast earlier because she's an education entrepreneur, um, is one of my longtime close friends. Um, and Lauren and I both love her. So it's nice that she likes her stepmom. But um, we'll get to that in a little bit. But I think it's so fun that I've known about Lauren since she was like maybe an adolescent. It's so crazy. And she didn't know about me. Um, but it's been really fun to see what she's like as an ad as an adult. So um I love the story of how you came to your role specifically because I think that your role is almost perfectly suited to your talents. Um, but can you tell like how you came to be at Learning Lab?

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Sure. Um, before I was at Learning Lab, I did real estate for roughly three years. And I feel like during the duration of that, I just something wasn't clicking. Like it still didn't feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. Um, I started in March of last year, so I've been here a little over a year as an intern, but uh I would say around January, that's when I was like, okay, let's go back to school to get my bachelor's degree, um, figure out maybe some more of my interests, and that's when I got introduced to you. And I was interested in marketing, so that happened to work out. You brought me on as a marketing intern, and here I am.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yes. So my favorite part of the story is I think so many people, even people my age, and I'm in my 40s. I hate saying that, by the way. Um are in a career path that feels uncomfortable to them or just doesn't feel like this is their destiny or this is what they should be doing. And so many times adults aren't brave enough to make a change. So, number one, I love that you were in a career path and like I didn't had identified on your own that like this is not what you want to do, and actually were brave enough to, you know, pursue a degree, do something differently. But I know and I wanted to ask you about um one of our former guests, Christy from True Compass, was on here. And so you were kind of doing some exploration about what career path you wanted to do. So can you tell them about like taking the true compass exam and like maybe some of the other things you considered being interested in?

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah, I think with the True Compass, there's something that has been, and even like in high school, when I was still trying to figure all these things out, I can't even remember the exact test, but it's something not as in-depth as the true compass test, but like something like the just the job career type test.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Interest-based, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Um, something that was like persistent or uh, what's the word I'm trying to think of? Like it's it was it was a constant, and all of those things was just I wanted to help people, and I couldn't figure out what that looked like.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Um, but taking a test like that, it shows you what you're good at and maybe what you need to work on, and so it helps identify just things that I you know I I could be good at, or things that maybe it's like, no, you probably should probably stick away from that. Like I suck at math, don't want to do anything like math.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

You and me both, sister.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Like if I'm your math teacher, you're screwed. So it's just identifying things like that that help put you in the right direction or point you in the right direction. So I found it very helpful um to see what I'm good at.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Do you want to share like some of the career fields that you like thought about for a minute? Because I feel like there was a handful.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

There, yeah, there really was. Um, I think from probably middle school through high school, I was always set on something in the medical field or real estate. Um, in high school, or I'm sorry, in college, I worked at Newton Medical Center. I got my CNA license for about a year. I worked in the OBG. It was great. I loved it. Um, but it was like at that point in time where I was at my last year of community college, and it was like, well, you either have to decide now if you're gonna like stick with this medical stuff and you know get your four-year degree. Yeah, get your four your degree and stick with it. Or not. Um, in the midst of all of that, real estate was something that I was always interested in. Um, my current real estate agent actually, I shadowed with her when I was in high school and did some open houses, loved it. So I was like stuck in the middle between the two. And you know, before deciding whether I wanted to keep going to school, it was like, well, I think I like this medical CNA job situation, but I don't think I love it enough to where I want to commit all of my time to it. Um, so that's when I decided to take a break. I I got my associate's degree, but then I pursued my real estate license.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

So you did that, and then you realized this isn't it probably to me, it sounds like it wasn't fulfilling that like helper function. So it's interesting because to really pick a good career, and we talk about this with kids all the time. I feel like you have to identify not only what you're good at, but also like what kind of lifestyle you want and what things are important to you, like what you value and what you're interested in. And for you, like I mean, we'll get to this, but I can tell what your strengths are pretty easily. I mean, probably not all of them, but a lot of them. I mean, because you are very good with people, so that like lends itself to like a helper service profession. Um, but you're also very good with things like data and organization. I guess I'm just gonna tell them why you're gonna so then when you were when you realized that it wasn't real estate, probably wasn't fulfilling that altruistic like need that you had. Um, you were, I remember Ashley telling me that you were looking into like social work at one point. And so that true compass test, it's the Ames battery test. So it tests you your ability in certain areas, but then it pairs it with like some assessments about what you like. Yes. Um, so that was a good experiment for you. And did that help you kind of settle on like marketing communications pathway?

SPEAKER_02 8:16

I don't know if you remember this. There was a point in time, it was before I obviously got my internship here, but it was when it was like I had I d I identified that I wanted to go back to school, but it was just trying to figure out that major. It was between the social work and marketing, because marketing was something I was always interested in, and I felt like I was okay at it. Um, but I don't I had called, you were one of my people that I had called, and I remember I put you through the ringer. We were trying to sell our house, and it was like your dogs are sorry, though. Can I call you back? So I was surprised you let me come.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I did not think anything of that. Like I barely remember that. But yeah, yeah. So you came here and you did some marketing, and I feel like partially responsible that you kind of decided like marketing might not be for you. Um, just because Lauren, like Lauren and I have very different brains, like but we get along really well. I mean, I feel like we never hardly have a conflict, but it's like Lauren is very good at details and she can keep track of information really well, she can set deadlines really well, and I am like a big picture thinker and I'm more of a creative, and that does not mean like I'm a good artist or anything like that, but I just am like an ideator and I like to look at like the like 360 view of things, and Lauren is good at like being like, yeah, but this piece of data's missing. Um so I hope that it's not just the way that I do marketing that you didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Oh my gosh. I think there's something about it that it's like I I've as I'm getting older, I noticed that like stability is like something that just like matters for me. And there's something about having the pressure of like, oh my god, I need this amount of people to come and do this thing. Yeah. I was like, absolutely not. That is true. And it's fun to create like the graphics, I love doing it. It's so fun for me to go take pictures. I think it's the fun stuff, but I think that's with every job. Like, there's things that you enjoy. You want to do the fun things. Getting your reports and your analytics that I messaged you about this morning. Like, like that's not something you want to do, obviously, right? So there's just different parts of it that I was like, yes, yes, yes, no.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and that is a little bit stressful about marketing, is because I think you can do all the right things, but then like still sometimes the demand isn't there for what you're trying to advertise or sell. Um, so you might not meet your goal anyway. So it's like maybe a lack of control type of thing. Yeah, I think so. Well, so to kind of round out the story, gosh, was it how long ago? Was it January of 25 when you started here? I started in March of 25. Okay, as an intern. Okay. And so you did that for like three to six months. Yeah. And during that time, I think you were kind of, I mean, and not to speak for you, but I felt like you were kind of deciding, like maybe you didn't know if this was the right, like you were questioning that path. Yeah. And Lydia, being the genius that Lydia is, one day was like talk, we were talking about like how how organized you were and like what a great contributor you were. And Lydia was said to me, um, I think Lauren should try project management. And so we connected with a friend of ours that stand together, Carrie Karst, and had her kind of set up some shadowing opportunities for you. How was that?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

That was great, and that's something I it's just like one of those times where it's something like, yes, I know I'm detail oriented and I'm organized, but it was always like I have all of these traits, but what do I, what do I do with them? So it was really nice to have someone see that in me and kind of put me on that path of like you should try this. Uh, and then being able to just shadow people and see what what that looks like. It was like, oh my gosh, this is this is heaven.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

That's so funny because that is like the opposite of my heaven. Um, yeah, so and not to say like I feel like you have a lot of skill sets that lend themselves to the corporate environment. I think um the way that your brain is good for business. So even if you're not a project manager your whole life, like you will find a fulfilling career through those skills. Um, but all that to say, what happened was she liked the shadowing and we happen to have an opening on our team. One of our team members moved out of Wichita at the moment that Lauren's internship was ending. And so she just was perfect. Yes, it was perfect. So she was able to seamlessly integrate into this role that we basically designed around some of Lauren's skill sets. So Lauren project manages our team here at Learning Lab. And so what that looks like is she just looks at all of our tasks and helps keep us on track and um make sure we're meeting our strategic plan goals. And she does that for Lydia, she does that for Molly, and she does that for me. And I I don't know if this is offensive or not, but I can I compared you the other day to a friend to the school secretary because the school not and not to like like your role is like more than administrative. I just want to be clear, but not the role itself, but like in schools, the school secretary like secretly runs the building, like has control of everything, knows everything about everyone because you're sitting at the front, so you just like see everyone, you see it all. And like I feel like in every school I've worked for at, I'm like maybe 15% afraid of the school secretary. Like, I want to make them happy. So that's like that is what I like. So it's like when you're project managing me, I like am meeting my deadlines because I just want to make Lauren happy, not and you're not mean, it's not that, it's just like you have a quality of like people are going to want to like appease you, which I think is also good for project management. And it's one of those skill sets that I feel like you would never, you know, when we talk to kids, so we talk to kids all the time. We don't say like, oh, I bet you're gonna be really good at analyzing data. There are just these skill sets that when you're trying to pick a career as an 18-year-old that you don't know what that lends itself to, what's important. I feel like our country needs to do a better job at that. Um, I always laugh about Lydia. Like, one of her skill sets is backward planning. So like you can see the goal at the end and then she can like put in all the framework to make she draws these really pretty.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

I mean, there was just like elaborate pictures of like this is all the things we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and like who would have identified that as a skill set? I think it's cool that you identified a skill set or someone saw Lydia and and I, but Lydia named it. I'll give her credit, I guess. She's not here. Um that that was a skill set, and then we can kind of see this as like a viable career path for you. So I hope you get to, I think you were talking about getting like some certifications in there. And I think that would help you too as you like kind of progress in your career.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

So you started officially last summer, so like it was August. August. So you're start like you're gonna celebrate one year in your permanent role at Learning Lab in August. So tell us how has that year been?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

It has been good. It I education was never a field that I thought I would end up in. Um, but like I anytime someone asks me about my job, while there's so many things that we do, it's just like it's always I love my job because I love being here. I really enjoy being with the kids more so than I thought I would.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

It's a whole thing that you can't really describe of like, like when you think about like, do I want to be a daycare provider? Do I want to be a teacher? You don't think about that element of like watching the growth?

SPEAKER_02 16:50

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah. Um, and you have some friends here, um, some kiddos that particular. I mean, I actually think many of the kids come and share things with you, which I think is a really neat thing. So right now we're down a staff member. So our our staff member Chris left um to move to Florida, I don't know how long, two months ago, maybe a month, just a month. Um, but anyway, so Lauren and Chris were sharing the front desk because they both had other responsibilities. And so now Lauren has been at the front desk all day long for like the entire month of April. And so anyway, you have some friends, especially I mean, I just think of of one friend that starts with a K. I guess we won't name names. Um, but she loves to come visit you and she helps you open up the space every morning, and she loves to help. But anyway, how has that? Can you talk a little more about like what what kids seek you out for and how that's affected you?

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Um, I think it's really refreshing to have it's interesting when they have such a positive relationship with the people around you, and then when they start coming to you for help, it it feels like heartwarming. And I really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

I think it you get a really good like viewpoint from your seat because it it seems like you know stuff about our families and our kids that I don't know because I'm not up there all day, and you have a few friends that will sit and talk to you. And so Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

And especially being today is like one of the last days for our our resident school models, and like we have some friends that are are moving on to different things, and so it's it's sad to see them go because you see there's one parent and specifically like specifically that I'm thinking about that when we did the back to school bash last year, I remember talking to her and she got like upset because this was the first time that she was sending her her daughter to school, and she just like wanted to make sure that this was gonna be a good fit for her, and then to see her now at the end of the year and how much she's just flourished and done really well. They change a lot.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Yeah, yes, I know. I'm having a hard time with the last day of school this year. I don't remember feeling as much like this last year, but I think like having the close relationships that we have developed over like the last year or two, it's just hard because some of them are either going to a different location of the school or they're just too old for their school next year. And so we are gonna miss some of our friends next year. Did you know that you liked kids? I did.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

I worked at a daycare in high school and I on the side was babysitting kids. So kids I've always liked them, and I feel like I'm pretty good at at dealing with them most of the time now.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

So yes, I I've always liked kids. Oh that's good. That's kind of a perk. Well, I wanted to rewind a little bit and ask you about your own schooling because you're seeing like how different school models in our space do it. But do you ever think about your kindergarten through 12th grade education? And can you talk about like what you liked about school, the subjects that you liked and didn't like, how school was for you?

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah. I have always been someone that learning just comes easy to me. It's not something that I had to try very hard at. As you know, I I like my lists, I like color coding, I'm I'm organized. So, like that, those have always been habits that I've done for a very long time. So it was easy for me. Not all subjects, of course. Math I hate, not my strong suit. There's things I maybe there's just certain things I don't like about math. But what I wish would be different, and I was in a a public school system, but I think there's you take we talked about the true compass test earlier, and you take these different tests to see what your interests are, but I wish there were more things that you could apply the skills that you may have and test them on different things before because they you know, in school they have you take the required subjects, but then you very rarely get to pick fun elective courses and like you're supposed to go to college after that and think you have it all planned and figured out, but it's not that it's not that simple.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah, I think I mean we just think about it all the time because of our mission. Um we think about like what talents kids can identify that might help point them toward not necessarily a career path, but like an idea of what they want their life to look like. Um because I think in today's world people change career paths like pretty frequently. I always think about the skills that we don't necessarily know um that are important. Like you say you don't like math but I feel like you're you would be good with data or you are good with data like you like tiny pieces of information and you can organize them really well so like maybe you just don't like equations or something that that maybe makes more sense did you have Lauren so you went to grade school in Washington state and then you ended up in Kansas um so how did you pick a college?

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Because you started out by getting your associate's degree I don't feel and it's it's very interesting seeing how your girls are picking colleges and and what they're doing. But I to me it was just like well I've ch checked off the the box of going to high school so now what? And my dad is from here so this is that's how I ended up in Kansas but I still had no idea what I wanted to do at that that point in time. The first two years I was deciding between real estate business and considering nursing school. So I was just trying to get the pre prerequisites figured out but I had no there was no like justification for me choosing the school that I did it was just like this is what's closest. Makes the most sense cost effective because I still had no idea what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

And you got your associate's degree like all at the same time like in two years. Correct yeah year and a half how did you like community college I I really I I liked it.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

I felt like it was comparable to the school that I went to when I was in Washington because I I went to a very big public school but what was nice was that I felt like the community college was very similar to that especially with like the amount of students that you had. It wasn't too busy and overwhelming for me. So I liked it.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Well you like you said you're a list maker so you are pretty good at like not you know not having late work etc and I'm sure some of your classes were more challenging than others but then later you decided to go back to school. Yeah. And so you're just now finishing your your college degree which is really cool. It's been it's kind of inspiring to me because I feel like I'm busy you know trying to be a parent and a worker but it's amazing to me this semester that you planned a wedding and got married and are still good at your job and you're in school and I was moving that's another added that's a lot but how have you balanced school through all of that and like do you feel like you're still enjoying learning at all or is it just like kind of a nuisance at this point I don't I like learning new things but I think it it feels very much like in high school where you had to take these courses because you had to take them to graduate.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

It's not and sometimes it's different because you can kind of pick and choose to meet your personal requirements or like job requirements of what you want to take but at this point in time with how busy my life has gotten it definitely feels like a nuisance. I can't imagine but that's not to say I don't like learning because I do like learning there's a line.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

I mean I think you know we talked about um you might get some project management certification. I think you'll enjoy that because you can directly apply it to what you do at work. Um so you ended up here and what what do you think about so you had you know several different career paths that we talked about how do you feel about Learning Lab Wichita's mission? Like what about the mission resonates with you?

SPEAKER_02 25:57

I think to tie it back to the questions that you were asking of the courses that I'm taking and how it's applicable to like what I'm doing now and vice versa as a student I don't feel like I had access to the resources of like trying things out before you commit to them whereas you don't know what your interests are until you do them. So when you're trying to pick your major in college and you've never done this thing you're gonna commit to this and then you might be stuck stuck doing it because you've put all this time and and money and effort into it before you know if you like it. So what I can appreciate about like what we're doing, I think the Fun Fridays is something that one it's super fun. The kids really enjoy it it's exciting it's different but I think we also offer with within the mix of fun and and exciting it's sometimes things that are more learning driven or career driven and I think that that's really fascinating to see students do that and one they either love it or they hate it. So I think that's a a nice thing to have especially with people that were just in an education where it was just like nope you you do these things this is your six hours for the day and you ought to pass it or you're you're done.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah so our fun Fridays if you've never listened to our podcast before are basically like college for a day for kids. So different age groups of kids have different choices every hour and they can take one class or they can take six classes takes a lot of our time and energy on Friday. Lauren you have put a lot of work into the organization and signing people up. So Lauren's in charge of all of our memberships and signups and um just working with the kids and instructors sometimes so if an instructor's sick or we have a supervised lunch period that Lauren gets to work every week. So um it's cool for you actually I mean it's a lot of work nobody on our team would ever say that Fun Friday is a light lift but I think it's neat that you are close to the project because you get to see the growth and the results and yeah part of our part of our kind of viewpoint is that kids need to explore their talents and interests just like what we've been talking about in your life. And Lydia always believes and tells everyone that that is what middle school should be for is just exploring options so that kids have kind of like a baseline of things that they enjoy doing and things that they don't. So we've had sewing and forensic yeah forensic science robotics. Yeah lots of different things that and especially like Fun Friday I mean the little kids have a great time at Fun Friday but I like to watch the middle school age kids or even up to high school kind of exploring some new well because I think that's almost the not that the younger kids don't well they just like they don't they they're here to have fun and do the fun classes whereas like your middle school students and high school students are more interested and involved and immersed in what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

So they they tend to care more about the things that they're creating.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Well and we've just set for the middle school age we've had some really cool outcomes from the project we had one class made a painted mural that is now at the nonprofit League 42 downtown at the baseball fields on the wall and these kids did this public artwork which I think is really cool. And then the find your grind class that we've had helps kids do exactly what we're talking about career exploration. And so that's been really kind of like within our mission. So you know our belief statement is all kids deserve an education that works for them. And so Fun Friday to me really aligns with that because even though Fridays are not we are not telling anyone that you could just come to Fun Friday and be done with your school for the week. But it's a supplement but it enhances um and it does serve those things. I was wondering if you had any thoughts because I feel like I mentioned this earlier but you see kids in and out. I mean you just get you see everybody's face if they're gonna come in the center they have to cross paths with Lawrence so I was wondering if you had any thoughts about like you you're now familiar with the different school models and I'm not asking like what your opinion is on one or the other but just like what are your thoughts about seeing how differently some of the school models operate and how families are choosing different paths for their kids.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

What I find so fascinating is that you know we have currently seven different resident school models and they all do something differently. And what I find the most interesting is that they're all doing their own thing but we can collectively be in the same building and operate like just like a normal school would. Like they come to school nothing changes about what they're inherently doing schedule wise but it is just you're intermingling so much that I find it it's it really is just interesting to see that dynamic and how they work together and sometimes how they don't work together and what works and what doesn't but I just find it so interesting how they operate independently but we're like all together.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah it's like that community piece so I was giving it tour earlier and the woman was like well what data outcomes are you tracking to see how this kind of school affects kids like she wanted to know like this environment because they observed they came in and there were kids in the makerspace that were unsupervised little pretty little kids and then they as they walk through the building you know they could see these kids like like basically you know creative minds had 10 different activities going on. So the kids weren't doing the same things and they were like I almost felt like the question was like do you think this is good for kids and and how are you gonna prove it? How are you gonna prove it with data? And I had to explain like each of our school models tracks their own data blah blah blah but then I was like you know the one thing that the schools have in common is the community piece. And I'm like this feels different than any traditional school I've been in because there's so much overlap between our school models even though they're learning come in completely different ways um the kids feel familiar with each other. There's like big brother little sister relationships. And I said you know that autonomy that we're giving them to have a little bit of freedom within the space to build relationships is making them happy. I'm like I'm sorry but if you could measure happiness I think it's hard to do but if you could I think our school would have a higher happiness rating than any other school.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Well and I think it's interesting that they and maybe this wasn't exactly the one thing that they pointed out aside from the data points but the friends that were maybe alone in the makerspace I think that's the nice thing about being here is that you can do that to an extent right like I'm not advocating that you just dump them off.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Just dump them and leave them. Yeah they're obviously checked on but you can see the whole makerspace from your desk. And what's yes like there's that and you know we obviously have supervision everywhere but that's the nice thing about being here is that you feel like safe and comfortable yeah well we have a really secure environment I mean that's part of what you guys do at the front um there's only one way to enter the building. Yes and also we all are so familiar with each other so it's like the the kids in the other classrooms like they probably know each other's name.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Oh for sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

So it's just like super interesting dynamic but I think to me that's been like an unexpected outcome. I mean I knew when we started my job my title as community director I've always really felt that we need a strong sense of community and like crossing paths and things but I just didn't know I don't think any of us knew like what effect that would have on the different groups and the different kids and it's just been like really lovely. It's my favorite part. Yeah it's awesome it's what is great seeing any other thoughts about um this experiment that we're doing like you came in you know really early like honestly like we just opened the September before you started as an intern in March but you know everything was already visioned out and the the facility was built out but I feel like you're helping establish like what this is like any thoughts about um just like the importance of the experiment that we're partaking in I think as we're coming up to like the end of the school year I just the growth I've seen in so many of the students from when they've started and to where they're at now it's just like some of them it's night and day on on how their behavior is, how they act their outlook on life like it's just you can see the effect that being in a space like this has on them.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

And obviously like their school model plays the biggest part but it's just been really nice to see that the work we're doing is it matters and like how it affects these students and the parents and the educators like it matters and it's working. So it's been really nice to see.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

I feel like it's working too now we just need to figure out we apparently need to figure out what data can prove that I'm like walk in the space and see the smiles that's the dead that's awesome. So Lauren um I hope that you work at Learning Lab forever with me because um I just think like we couldn't have dreamed up the perfect addition to our team if um but I also wonder if when you're thinking really long term like 20 years from now when you're as old as me what do you think like project management is like your destiny or like do you have any other ideas about what you want your career to do or are you just gonna let it like unfold I truthfully I think I'm leaning more towards letting it unfold.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

I think for you know a long time I'm just like trying to to do everything right and manage it all perfectly and with doing that I still didn't end up where I thought I would be so I'm just along for the ride.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

I just want to see I love that well you know me I'm like a big believer in like um there's a plan and you gotta be like you're just on your path and like no matter like the more you try to control everything the less fulfilling that journey is going to be for you. That's just my personal belief. Um but I definitely think that you're meant to be here so that's fun and I'm just super excited to continue this work with our team. We are kind of at a point of transition with our team just we have an open position we might be reworking some job descriptions. We're looking at the possibility of expanding to other cities which is really exciting um so I don't know if you think so but I just think it's like still a very exciting time to be here. So it is it's the beginning it's fresh it's what what a time like endless possibility lots of hope involved anything else you want to share with our audience I don't think so well Lauren thank you so much for being our guest today it was probably overdue because I feel like everyone should know about you as we're kind of sharing our learning story and I'm sure you'll make a comeback coherence at some point but it was fun to do this with you today and we will see our audience next