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I went to Buff State's graduate orientation last night. It made me feel old. The last hour was program specific and the people in my program definitely made me feel old. You could tell many of them were right out of college or were out of college only a year or two. Not that I'm sooooo old, but I've already been through two careers and an extremely difficult graduate degree program. One of the professors made an interesting comment about remembering my application when it came up that I already have an MSW. I also got chatting with the woman from career services and the reaction I keep getting is something along the lines of why am I doing this when I already have an MSW? I don't know. Ask the people who hire at colleges who seem to believe the old school of thought that social workers just do child welfare and have no idea what I really learned in that program so that I can't seem to get a job at a college with just that degree (holy run-on sentence, Batman!).
The woman from career services encouraged me to hurry up and get my internships over with because she felt I could easily get a job before I finish the degree with the combination of the two. This got me thinking about how part-time I want to do this. I was only going to take 6 credit hours, but I can't do any internships until I take 9, so I'd have to wait until summer or fall for the first one. John and I discussed this when I got home and agreed that it might be in my best interest to just do this thing full-time (which for them is only 9 credit hours a semester anyway). It would probably get me in the job field quicker, which would make it more cost effective in the long run. And especially this semester I should go for it since I had to get re-fingerprinted for the adoption agency and who knows how long it will take for those to come back before I can start doing contract work for them. I may as well just take another class this semester.
So I logged on last night and a lot of the first year classes are already closed. But there is an online course in the concentration I plan on going with that still had room so I registered for that. That will actually be perfect because I won't need to add an extra day of daycare like I thought I'd have to with another class. I have to say that one thing I really appreciate about this program is how darn flexible it is. There are very few courses that need to be taken in sequence and you can do it at whatever speed you want. The MSW required such a rigid schedule. John keeps reassuring me that this will truly be much easier than the MSW ever was. God, I hope so.
By the way, I forgot what a fricking racket the textbook industry is. That online course requires a $93 textbook. Thankfully, I found it on Amazon for $60, but even that is absurd. I got one I ordered from Amazon yesterday that cost $50-60 (I can't remember exactly) and it's smaller than most Stephen King books. How do they get away with this?
Ooh, Nora's awake...
The woman from career services encouraged me to hurry up and get my internships over with because she felt I could easily get a job before I finish the degree with the combination of the two. This got me thinking about how part-time I want to do this. I was only going to take 6 credit hours, but I can't do any internships until I take 9, so I'd have to wait until summer or fall for the first one. John and I discussed this when I got home and agreed that it might be in my best interest to just do this thing full-time (which for them is only 9 credit hours a semester anyway). It would probably get me in the job field quicker, which would make it more cost effective in the long run. And especially this semester I should go for it since I had to get re-fingerprinted for the adoption agency and who knows how long it will take for those to come back before I can start doing contract work for them. I may as well just take another class this semester.
So I logged on last night and a lot of the first year classes are already closed. But there is an online course in the concentration I plan on going with that still had room so I registered for that. That will actually be perfect because I won't need to add an extra day of daycare like I thought I'd have to with another class. I have to say that one thing I really appreciate about this program is how darn flexible it is. There are very few courses that need to be taken in sequence and you can do it at whatever speed you want. The MSW required such a rigid schedule. John keeps reassuring me that this will truly be much easier than the MSW ever was. God, I hope so.
By the way, I forgot what a fricking racket the textbook industry is. That online course requires a $93 textbook. Thankfully, I found it on Amazon for $60, but even that is absurd. I got one I ordered from Amazon yesterday that cost $50-60 (I can't remember exactly) and it's smaller than most Stephen King books. How do they get away with this?
Ooh, Nora's awake...
