BS: Going back to school.

Subject: BS: Going back to school.
From: Kim C
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 11:12 AM

The nice people at Belmont University here in Nashville have decided to let me into their graduate English program. I think I'll do my thesis on the history of the murder ballad in Anglo-American folk music. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 11:51 AM

Kim C: Has it been a long time since you've attended school? I find that being a student later in life is very different from being a student when you're a teenager. For one thing, you can ask a lot more questions without feeling afraid of looking stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: GUEST,Rapaire, In Hiding
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 12:28 PM

I went back to grad school after a 6 year stop-out. I found the students far, far less likely to ask questions than "back in my day" and much, much more likely to simply copy down and regurgitate what the prof preached.

I didn't get along with a couple of profs for this reason. And I don't think that I'd go back to school for a "regular" grad degree in English -- I find too much of what Pope called "confusing the puppet with the puppeteer." Maybe folklore.

But good luck and you're never too old 'til you've been dead for a year.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 12:40 PM

Congratulations, Kim C.

JtS and I have a friend who is currently attending Belmont, and we're acquainted with one of the people who teach there. The teacher is Muriel Anderson. She teaches guitar stuff. Our student friend is about 21 years old, and he's from Italy. His name is Giacomo, but he goes by the nick name of J. He's studying guitar. Both are quite gifted musicians. Maybe you'll meet one or the other of them sometime. If you do, say hi for us, ok?

Have you decided how you'll apply your masters degree in your daily life (job) once you get it?

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 12:45 PM

Excellent plan -- it worked for me. I got my MS later in life, but it was in a technology field, and so it paid off in salary opportunities, I like to believe. But regardless of that, going back to school as an adult was an absolute hoot and a load of intellectual stimulation and fun. Enjoy!

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Kim C
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 02:07 PM

Jim, I graduated from college the first time in 1989. That's been a day or two. Nowadays, though, it seems like more Adult-Type People are going back to school. Plus, this is the same place I went the first time, and several of the professors are still there. I adored all my English professors with the exception of one, and that was only because she had no sense of humor. She's still there, but we're both 15 years older this time around.

Carol, I have never met Muriel Anderson in person, but she has a great reputation as a fabulous guitarist and teacher. I have seen her play on TV before and her reputation is well-deserved.

I hope to get a job teaching like my friend Howard, so I can have summers off to write stuff. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: GUEST,Marks
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 02:54 PM

Kim
Your biggest problem is likely to be that you know more due to life experience than do many of your teachers. You will also find that back in the classroom, you will have a low baloney tolorance point.
Just keep in mind that often you will need to keep your cool and you will do fine!
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 03:07 PM

It just occurred to me, Kim, that they would not know us by our Mudcat names, should you happen to meet them. They would know us as Rob and Carol and/or Arch and Ethel from the guitar forum. We met Muriel in Minneapolis/St. Paul a the home of a mutual friend, and we met J in Huntsville, Alabama, also at the home of a mutual friend (as well as seeing him regularly in the guitar forum). They're both very nice people.

Anyway, much success to you with your studies.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 05:47 PM

You will perhaps also find, as I did, that only a few are infected with the vital spirit of knowing and the real desire to pursue it by asking questions and discussing. The rest are dross who want to pass tests. Choose your friends from the former. Sometimes the teachers will be one.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 07:38 PM

Well, one good thing is that most of the professors I had before actually teach in the Masters program now. And this time around it's different because it's my choice, not my parents'.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 08:17 PM

I envy you Kim. You will have such an advantage having lived a few years and learned a few things. Let us know how we can help with the thesis.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 09:06 PM

I went back to school about 17 years after I finished my undergraduate work (and I poked along at that, working and going to school alternately so I could pay as I went). I was older than several of my professors, but since I was there to learn what they had to teach, I didn't find that what I knew about life and what they knew about teaching to be in conflict. I did a masters in English and most of a second masters in Philosophy (gotta write that thesis one of these days). I did find that after having worked as a journalist and a freelance writer that I was a resource to one of my professors, who had only published scholarly work. He asked one day about how to get published for pay, and followed my advice and is now happily balancing the academic and commercial writing.

You will encounter some who are there just for the grades--you do have to be patient with those who still aren't doing much critical thinking even though they're working on an advanced degree. I generally found most of my classmates to be fully engaged, and I made some wonderful new friends there--this was a great way to get to know some people in a very complex and satisfying manner.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 09:17 PM

Geezy peezy, all you edicated folx are comin outa the woodwork now. Amos got hisself a MS and SRS got prit near two M degrees. An I sit here with jist an MS and a enough credit hours fer a second M degree, most of 'em in how to do good writin. Golly dang, I think I'll jist mosey on upstairs now and check on the laundry.

In the mean time -- hey, I met my wife when I returned to undergrad work after the Army! She was faculty, I was a student. Couldn't hardly stomach the other students because I was only a couple of chronological years, but psychological centuries, older. You might well have the same problem.

Another problem you might have is best described: my brother was in Vietnam. He experienced combat there, including some rather nasty incidents. When he was in grad school, a prof tried to tell him things about combat in VN she had learned from books. Let's just say that he dropped the class, being the shy, inarticulate sort he is.

Stay with the 'Cat. Good support group. Weird, but mostly nice folks.

You CAN do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Kim C
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 09:47 AM

Thanks. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 10:16 AM

Going back to grad school as a (shall we say) mature adult is fun. I got my undergrad in 1968 and first Masters in 1974, worked for 27 years (and went to school part-time for a number of years) and then went back to the university when I retired. I'm about to complete another Masters, in history. Campus is different from what it once was...for one thing, the girls all look a bit unfinished...but the faculty still gives the impression that they are somewhat disconnected from the real world. Enjoy!

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Kim C
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 05:50 PM

It's sort of funny ... once I decided I wanted to do this, I found other people around me, my age and older, doing the same thing. My friend the Absent-Minded Professor didn't even go to college at all till he was 27. And he turned out all right. For the most part, anyhow. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Jul 04 - 04:13 AM

I started my management degree when I was 40, and I think my reaction to the material was very different from that of the kids just out of high school. I could more readily understand the practical applications of a lot of the stuff we were learning, and I was finding theoretical justification for much of what I was already doing.

It was even better when we did a couple of subjects on government and politics. I could remember things that happened before some of these kids were born.

Have fun, Kim.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: GUEST,Guest (not that guest)
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 05:26 PM

refreshing random threads for giggles.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 09:28 AM

Oh good, another person planning on going into teaching because they get summers off. How admirable.

Subject: RE: BS: Going back to school.
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 09:43 AM

Well, after some serious thinking about it, and an aborted attempt at a second master's (we moved, and I was getting bored) 20 years back, I'm thinking about a second master's again.

I don't need it. I don't really need the hassle. But I've gotten interested in folklore and that's gotten me to thinking about how much of what we collect as folklore is actually someone putting someone else one ("We always lie to strangers" is a book by Vance Randolph). Like, did African-American prostitutes in my home town really wash their steps with their urine in the belief that it would attract men (as Hyatt collected) or did they just want him to leave them alone and were too polite to tell him what Cheney told Leahy? So I suppose it would be folklife, not folklore.

Somebody talk me out of this before I study again!