not updating this blog more.
So here goes:
Summer classes flew by, with a WHOLE lot of work. Man, grad school is tough. It was only a 7 week (or 8 week, depending who you talked to) term, and one of my classes was only 3 weeks long (and ended with a presentation I had to give on my birthday! ugh). Over the 7ish weeks I wrote 2 research papers, 2 essay exams, a strategic plan (2 drafts), researched foundations, and did a group presentation on grant writing. Phew...how did I do it? I'm unsure. Looking back it was so tough. I'd work at Mt Hope 7:30-2ish and then head up to school until 9:15pm. It was hard, but I'm that much closer to adding 3 little letters after my name M.Ed.
So now fall classes have begun. I'm taking 3 courses: Community Development, University-Community Relations, and Schools,Systems and Social Justice. After the summer term ended, I really was unsure if community engagement was the program for me. I had enjoyed my higher ed class the most, and was really concerned that I was going in the wrong direction. As had been a prior issue in my life, I wasn't interested in taking the same path as my sister JK, so I chose Comm Engagement as a way to get out of that cycle (I mean we went to the same college, I pretty much followed her path to a T).
The other night, after an AWESOME first university-community relations class, I went up to my professor and basically said 'So I loved this...am I in the wrong program?' She kind of laughed a little and then reassured me I was on the right track. She said she was surprised after viewing my resume that I wasn't in higher ed, only because I was so involved in undergrad, but that I could get a job in higher ed with my comm engagement degree, and that she would help me tailor my resume for HE jobs. I, ladies and gentlemen, was stoked.
Along with classes, I'm at my fellowship 3 days a week. I work in Lowell at Community Teamwork Inc. Basically I am an intern, but they are paying Merrimack for my masters. A win-win, except when my bills come in the mail! For that I am working at Old Navy a couple days a week, and probably gonna be chipping away at my savings a little at a time, but thats why I've been saving money from every christmas, birthday, easter, graduation, celebration since I was born, so I wouldn't have to worry about money...just keep telling myself that.
Grad school is stressful and takes up a lot of my time...but in May it'll be over...and I'll (hopefully) find a job...take that recession!
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