Tuesday, August 29, 2006

I'm doing this BECAUSE I WANT TO!

After Day 1 of grad school, I really don't need this reminder, but .... it looks like a lot of work on top of my full-time job and a couple of volunteer gigs. On the bright side, I wasn't the only one without a laptop. In fact, I didn't see any. Plus, the classroom is a lab full of computers, so I guess I won't have to go out and start spending my future raise (I expect one, you know, after earning this degree.) to get a laptop or notebook or whatever they are called these days.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Going Back To School — 20 Years Later

Well, I've been accepted to grad school, 20 years after earning my undergrad degree. I guess I sort of expected to be accepted, but getting the letter was nice.

The toughest part so far, aside from finally getting myself to talk to the department head and then applying several months later than I should have, was studying for and taking the GRE. Lots of studying after work and on weekends for a month or so. I should have started sooner. I sure spent a lot of time talking and thinking about it before finally acting. Maybe I would have done better on the GRE had I given myself another month to study. It would have been nice to score higher on the verbal section, but who knows. Another month of studying vocabulary that I'll never use, that nobody uses. Besides, what's the chance any additional words I might have learned in that time would have shown up on the test anyway? Not very good. As for the math, give me three hours and I would do fine, but 45 minutes... Good thing I have some writing ability.

So now I have to do all those things a freshman has to do, like completing health forms, registering for classes and buying text books. I wonder if I will be the only student without a laptop in class? This is going to make me feel old, but I'll get over it.