Going back to school

I have decided to go ahead and register myself as a History/English major at the local college. With intensive class loads for the next four semesters, to include most likely summer courses, I could get the requirements out of the way and add these topics to my teaching credentials after taking the appropriate state exams. Both topics were topics I enjoyed when I was an undergrad but didn't take because they weren't required for my German-French double majors.

Declaring a major also allows me to register on-line and in advance AND it gives me priority for courses. Right now as an undeclared student I don't have that privilege.

All the courses I've taken in the last year other than that Anthro class I enjoyed so much were requirements for my Arizona Secondary Education Teaching Certificate. I completed that requirement. Now I can take all the other courses that were appealing to me in the course catalog but which I didn't have time to take. The college here has a good history department that offers history classes not just on the United States, but also Mexico. I have always wanted to learn more about our neighbors to the South.

The good thing about Arizona's higher education system is that its community colleges are very affordable ($52 a credit hour) and up to 64 credits are transferable toward a degree toward any of the state's three public universities: University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona State University in Phoenix, and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Compare that, for example, to UA's tuition rate of $259 a unit plus all the added fees (including the $55 "economic recovery surcharge" to compensate for the current recession) makes a full unit fee $427.50. Most UA courses are three units. Students would be foolish not to take their first two years at their local community college before entering the larger universities for the upper-level courses.

This means, though, that I will have to take dreaded math classes. Math was my biggest weakness in high school, barely earning passing grades. I may have to take a class of two of remedial algebra, classes that won't count toward my degree, for a year. This is going to be my biggest hurdle and could potentially lower my overall GPA by a grade or two. Eeech.

This also means no extended summer road trips for a while. That's a sacrifice. But I could get a lot of required courses out of the way in two short but intensive terms.

I may even try some of the on-line, non-intensive-writing courses as well. This way I could take the weekly assignments at a time that is convenient for me rather than having all evening classes four days a week like I have right now.

All the other requirements, though, are courses that I would have wanted to take down the line in the next few years, like Digital Photography for the ARTS requirement, Southwest Heritage for the Humanities requirement, even Biology for Non-Majors for the Lab/Science requirement. Too bad the college doesn't offer Botany though. That would work great with my Master Gardener certificate.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk to an advisor to see if some of my old undergrad courses could apply toward my plan. Maybe I can get a placement exam for my Spanish requirement as surely Spanish 101 would be too easy for me, a waste of time and money, and not challenging enough. Spanish is the only language that is offered at the college, and it's a graduation requirement, which means everyone will have to take the elementary courses.

Kevin is cool with my plan. Thank God. My first husband was so adamantly opposed to me taking any more college courses once we were married. "You are a mother now, you don't need to be going back to college!" he once said. And I was dumb enough to believe him then.

I was able to sign up for an additional Computer Essentials course and the required English 102 courses last week, both which are required for graduation. That leaves me with four courses for this semester, or 12 credits, of which nine are intensive writing courses. I also want to take a few more computer/network/world wide web courses just to expand my computer literacy.

By the time I am done with my plan I am going to have more than the 64 credits for two Associate Degrees, but all the courses are going to help me down the line for those more challenging graduate courses I still want to take. They, however, may be another two years down the line.

I am going to be so busy here in another week. But I am ready for the challenge.