- I survived last semester being a full-time employee and full-time student
- Admin leave went by so quickly
- Spring semester is starting!!!
Fall Semester Recap
I thoroughly enjoyed my fall. True, I spent less time recruiting prospective students for Mount Holyoke College, but I'm acutally only 9 credits away from being done with the program! It's actually kind of sad. I'm not ready to be done! Maybe I should apply for that advanced women's studies certificate program......
I am also incredibly satisfied with everything I learned from each of my courses this semester: Intro to Higher Ed, Multicultural Issues in Disability & Seminar in Student Affairs. I feel like, I am really finding my place in higher education with regards to the research I enjoy and would like to be doing. All signs do seem to be pointing towards a PhD and as I am finding my niche, certain programs are standing out more and more.
In both Intro to Higher Ed and my Seminar in Student Affairs, I was able to focus on my love of technology in higher education. For my seminar course, I reviewed three higher ed news articles - all relating to social networking in higher educaiton - to go in depth about the role of social networking in college admission, alumni relations, and the privacy issues raised by social networking. I prepared a proposal for an "online workshop" - more of an informative website, titled: Engaging Digital Natives through Social Networking. It's honestly a good start, but I've got more I want to add to it. I also did a proposal for this website - which got accepted for the HERA conference! I'm also thinking of submitting it to another conference that takes place online in April.
In my intro to higher ed course, I did my lit review on two primary research articles on college students and Facebook. I was thinking of continuing with that theme for my final paper for that course, but I really wanted to pull in as many class readings into the paper as possible, and decided to look at the "big picture" of the role of technology in higher education.
While I learned many things in both of my EDEA courses, perhaps the best things I gained from these courses was a better sense of where I'd like to focus my educational attention in the future. Dr. M had us thinking a lot about professional development, which was very salient to me, and I think my research topic in that course really helped me clarify this. In Dr. C's course, the combination of my interview, the panelists, and my research helped me realize that I think I would really like my future to be in the academic realm of higher education (teaching and/or research) and less so in administrative functions (i.e. institutional research). I also came up with the idea to do some research on online pedagogy which I am so excited to be doing this semester with Dr. E!
My multicultural issues in disability course was fabulous. My only gripe is that it was online, and I just think this is a course more suited to meeting in person. Some of the readings got me so completely fired up that I would end up frustrated that I had nobody to talk to about the readings! There was a TON of reading for this class (as it really should be for an online course), but I really feel I've got a solid understanding of some of the frameworks of working with people with disabilities, and the many other factors (i.e. race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality) that intersect with disability issues. The final was a 10 page case study and we were required to use both in class texts, as well research several sources that were not part of class. I can honestly say I had fun doing that assignment! (I didn't think I would.)
Overall, a fabulous semester...and believe it or not, when it was over, I didn't curl up and hibernate. I was still completely jazzed and very disappointed the semester was over. I am also so proud of myself for managing to balance sleep. I don't think I pulled any all nighters and I think I managed to go to bed by 11pm most nights!
Admin Leave
Admin leave was SO nice. When I was working at Brown, we had the days between Christmas and New Years off, and I really missed having that. I seriously don't mind the pay cut and getting those days off. Though I spent half of it being really sick (why do I always get sick during breaks and on weekends?) I read some great books.
"Push" (the book that the movie "Precious" was based on) was great. It moved quickly, and had a good mix of intensity and humor. A book sitting on my shelf for awhile is "The Gatekeepers" about admissions at selective colleges. Of course, this is what I'm most familiar with, so I just ate it up. My guilty pleasure was Dan Brown's most recent book "The Lost Symbol." In my opinion, it doesn't come even close to reaching Da Vinci Code or Angels and Deamons, but I like that it takes place in DC (a city I've actually been to), and I liked an ancillary topic this book introduced me to: noetic science. Noetic science is basically the study of human potential and the power of human thought (think about - the power of thought in healing, the power of multiple people thinking the same thought, meditation, etc.) - something I find very interesting. So as a follow-up to this book, I thought the Dalai Lama's "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality" was an appropriate follow-up. I'm not finished with it yet, but it's great! He compares the similarities and differences of scientific and spiritual thought as well as modes of inquiry. -And while I can see this book being used for a religion course, I actually can see some of these chapters being used in a research methods course as he does a great job of explaining about things like inductive and deductive reasoning, and scientific and buddhist inquiry. (I recommend it to any fans of research methods.)
Spring Semester
I have to admit that I was completely spoiled by admin leave, and got used to my time off! At the end of the fall semester, I was still totally jacked up for classes and now, I'm like, "Really? Classes start on MONDAY?" Not to be worried, I'm sure once I go to my first class I'll be inspired for the new semester to begin! Then there's the insanity at work...we're upgrading and I will be insanely busy for the first few months of this year. I hope I can manage taking four credits and working 'round the clock. Speaking of which, I know it's Saturday, but I need to get back to work. Not schoolwork, but WORK work. *sigh*
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