So yeah. I'm two quarters into an expensive grad school program and thinking about dropping out and entering an entirely new program (and no: nothing would transfer). There's good news and bad news.
The good news: I finally know what I want to be when I grow up! I've been struggling ever since I started school, in part because I'm much more practical than most of the people at DU. I've been working for 10 years. I make a good salary. I'm respected. I have a career, one I trained for and earned, and it's been hard to stomach the idea that I would be not just taking several steps back, but taking a 50% pay cut (if I was lucky) at the same time. I mean, why am I spending $60K for a MA if I'm going to graduate and make $40K a year? Not that it's all about money to me, but it's a little about money.
So anyway, I kind of came to the conclusion that I want to stay in the corporate world. Not just because it pays more, but also because I have so much experience here, and I'm good at it. I thought about doing more "corporate social responsibility" work, and that's when I decided that a business degree would be a good idea and applied for that program. That upped my degree cost to closer to $90K, tacked on about another year of classes, and didn’t promise any immediate increase in my income (it’s very hard to get into corporate responsibility work, because most companies hire from within).
Then, last quarter I took a career development class (it's a free class they offer students), and they talk a lot in that class about values and skills and interests, helping to focus you. At the same time, I started reading that new Thomas Friedman book (Hot, Flat and Crowded--great read) and it got me to thinking about how I've always been interested in the issues of renewable energy, and how that also falls into the important "sustainability" category that is what attracts me to international development work in the first place. So I started looking at job descriptions in the energy sector. I found my dream job, found the GEM program, and then things really started happening.
You know the idea that, once you start looking in the right direction, things will just start happening for you? Well, things are certainly happening. I talked to my aunt, who worked in power when I was a kid and is now working for another power company, and she's been connecting me to some of her old colleagues, who have largely attained pretty high and mighty positions by now. One of them offered me a free pass to a conference on renewable energy this week, and a plane ticket so I could get there. And so I went, talked to a lot of people, and became even more interested in renewable energy. I think this is really a good fit for me.
The bad news is that the GEM program is probably a better entry into the field, and of course nothing that I've taken at DU transfers. I would have to start all over, although the program is actually cheaper, and I'd end up owing less at the end of it than I will if I continue at DU. I would also finish my degree at the same time (or earlier) than I would finish the DU program.
So here I am, considering starting over—again. I may be crazy, but it feels right.
17 March 2009
02 October 2008
1.5 Highlighters a Week
I like Foray highlighters, the kind with the liquid ink that you can see in the barrel. The Foray highlighter has a bright, even line that doesn't bleed through the paper too much. It can smear a bit if I'm not careful, but at least it doesn't bleed through. Since I print everything double-sided, that's important.
So the second week of school, as I was merrily reading about Democracy in Latin America and highlighting away (but not too much, of course--it's not like I'm coloring the pages yellow) I noticed that my lines were getting paler. Is it the light? I wondered... But no. After several pages I finally realized that the pen's reservoir was empty. I've run out of ink.
How odd, I thought to myself. I thought that pen was new. I scrounged up an old highlighter (and I mean old--probably five or six years old) and used that for the rest of the evening, although it was nearly dry.
The next day I borrowed a highlighter from work. The ones we have at work are not Foray--they're Hi-Liter brand, and are "SmearSafe". Well, they may not smear, but they definitely bleed. They're also not very bright--sometimes I had trouble telling which lines I had highlighted on a page, and which lines were highlighted on the other side of the sheet and had bled through. How ridiculous is that? The pen was also not very ergonomic, and for some reason I had a hard time telling which way the point of the pen was facing--to make a thin or thick line--unless I looked at it carefully (very annoying when you're reading and highlighting frequently).
So I went and bought a box of 10 Foray highlighters. I've already run another pen dry, and I figure I'm going at a rate of about one pen every week or 10 days. Talk about a lot of ink!
My first test is Saturday. I'll be referencing all those highlighted pages then--wish me luck!
So the second week of school, as I was merrily reading about Democracy in Latin America and highlighting away (but not too much, of course--it's not like I'm coloring the pages yellow) I noticed that my lines were getting paler. Is it the light? I wondered... But no. After several pages I finally realized that the pen's reservoir was empty. I've run out of ink.
How odd, I thought to myself. I thought that pen was new. I scrounged up an old highlighter (and I mean old--probably five or six years old) and used that for the rest of the evening, although it was nearly dry.
The next day I borrowed a highlighter from work. The ones we have at work are not Foray--they're Hi-Liter brand, and are "SmearSafe". Well, they may not smear, but they definitely bleed. They're also not very bright--sometimes I had trouble telling which lines I had highlighted on a page, and which lines were highlighted on the other side of the sheet and had bled through. How ridiculous is that? The pen was also not very ergonomic, and for some reason I had a hard time telling which way the point of the pen was facing--to make a thin or thick line--unless I looked at it carefully (very annoying when you're reading and highlighting frequently).
So I went and bought a box of 10 Foray highlighters. I've already run another pen dry, and I figure I'm going at a rate of about one pen every week or 10 days. Talk about a lot of ink!
My first test is Saturday. I'll be referencing all those highlighted pages then--wish me luck!
26 September 2008
Academic Writing
A lot of people ask me if I like my classes. My response is usually a sort of sad pause and then, "Uh...sorta. I'm still deciding." Which of course is an evasion, since we're three weeks into the 10-week quarter. Surly I've made up my mind by now?
My first class is Statistics, which has been easy so far. I'm waiting for the shoe to drop, actually. It can't continue to be so easy, can it? The focus of the class is more on the application of statistics, using charts and graphs. We go over the math, but the really it's about learning how to the use a statistics analysis software called SAS. The math part is more about understanding the data than about crunching numbers and memorizing formulas. (Thank goodness!) I like this class because I think it very useful. (Also, the professor is quite good at explaining the math.)
My second class is Group and Organizational Dynamics. The intent of this class is to teach us about the ways that groups interact in the workplace, and talk about these interactions in terms of (management) tools. I have mixed feelings about this class. On one hand I appreciate the intent; but I'm not sure the execution lives up to my expectations of this program. That's all I'll say here, though--you can ask me privately if you want details!
Of the three classes I'm taking, my favorite and also the most irritating class is "The International System." It's irritating in large part because of the IMMENSE amount of reading associated with the course. I told a couple of people that it was about 500 pages a week, but I just added up this week's readings and it only comes out to about 425 pages of dense academic reading, not 500. All of the reading is highly technical, full of citations and references to other academics' writings. It assumes a lot of prior knowledge about the subject, and is made more difficult in that we're assigned sections from larger texts--say chapters 3 and 4 of a book--and so even have full knowledge of the specific text that we're reading. I always feel a little frustrated when I read something like, "As you remember from Chapter 1...."
To make it all more difficult, each author seems to come up with his own
slight variation on terms to describe his particular flavor of the concept. So there are a dozen different words to talk about the same general theories. From one 50 page paper (and let me say these are not all about the same things): constructivist, conventional realist, structural realist, structural materialist, statist, regime theorist, hegemonic regime theorist, neoliberal, idealist....
And so on. And all of the texts assume I already understand all these terms, and have read most of other writers on subject. For a novice, they're completely unapproachable, and are clear demonstrations of why I dislike academic writing.
I need a dictionary of international relations theoretical terminology. Better yet, I need an "International Relations for Dummies" book. Only there isn't one; this class makes me want to write it.
Because the subject is interesting. The theory is interesting. When I can make my way through the jargon and get to the meat, I am fascinated more often than not. If only I had the time to spend on this! Because that's the difficulty of this class--it's so much more work than my other classes (combined) that I'm perpetually behind. (And then, in class today, the professor says that we should "read that article again." Again? I haven't even gotten through everything once, and now you want me to read that incredible dense 70-page article--which took me 4 hours to read last night--again??)
At least it's interesting, though. Right?
My first class is Statistics, which has been easy so far. I'm waiting for the shoe to drop, actually. It can't continue to be so easy, can it? The focus of the class is more on the application of statistics, using charts and graphs. We go over the math, but the really it's about learning how to the use a statistics analysis software called SAS. The math part is more about understanding the data than about crunching numbers and memorizing formulas. (Thank goodness!) I like this class because I think it very useful. (Also, the professor is quite good at explaining the math.)
My second class is Group and Organizational Dynamics. The intent of this class is to teach us about the ways that groups interact in the workplace, and talk about these interactions in terms of (management) tools. I have mixed feelings about this class. On one hand I appreciate the intent; but I'm not sure the execution lives up to my expectations of this program. That's all I'll say here, though--you can ask me privately if you want details!
Of the three classes I'm taking, my favorite and also the most irritating class is "The International System." It's irritating in large part because of the IMMENSE amount of reading associated with the course. I told a couple of people that it was about 500 pages a week, but I just added up this week's readings and it only comes out to about 425 pages of dense academic reading, not 500. All of the reading is highly technical, full of citations and references to other academics' writings. It assumes a lot of prior knowledge about the subject, and is made more difficult in that we're assigned sections from larger texts--say chapters 3 and 4 of a book--and so even have full knowledge of the specific text that we're reading. I always feel a little frustrated when I read something like, "As you remember from Chapter 1...."
To make it all more difficult, each author seems to come up with his own
slight variation on terms to describe his particular flavor of the concept. So there are a dozen different words to talk about the same general theories. From one 50 page paper (and let me say these are not all about the same things): constructivist, conventional realist, structural realist, structural materialist, statist, regime theorist, hegemonic regime theorist, neoliberal, idealist....
And so on. And all of the texts assume I already understand all these terms, and have read most of other writers on subject. For a novice, they're completely unapproachable, and are clear demonstrations of why I dislike academic writing.
I need a dictionary of international relations theoretical terminology. Better yet, I need an "International Relations for Dummies" book. Only there isn't one; this class makes me want to write it.
Because the subject is interesting. The theory is interesting. When I can make my way through the jargon and get to the meat, I am fascinated more often than not. If only I had the time to spend on this! Because that's the difficulty of this class--it's so much more work than my other classes (combined) that I'm perpetually behind. (And then, in class today, the professor says that we should "read that article again." Again? I haven't even gotten through everything once, and now you want me to read that incredible dense 70-page article--which took me 4 hours to read last night--again??)
At least it's interesting, though. Right?
