Returning to School 30+ Years Later

Image courtesy of Creative Commons By: Cheryl Foong – CC BY 2.0via flicker.com

This appears to be an active year for me. I’ve been so busy while this year is flying by. Where did summer go? I can’t believe that fall has already fallen upon us. I love the fall foliage, but I hate seeing bare trees later in the season. I’m not a fan of winter either. Spring and summer are my favorite seasons.

First Off – 2^nd Time Grandma

I’m a grandma again!

My daughter gave birth a week ago to a bouncing baby girl. Ava is healthy and happy. She was 6lbs 5 oz. and 18 ½ inches long. I hear she is already lifting her head on her own. Her big sister, Jasmine, is so proud to be a big sister. She helps her mommy feed Ava. I’m not sure if she is changing her diapers yet, I will find out next weekend when we go visit her.

Jasmine is also learning to do cartwheels. For a six-year-old she almost did a perfect cartwheel in a video my daughter posted. I couldn’t help but smile when she did a headstand against the wall for her last part of her performance.

Great Job Jasmine!

My Classes Continue

I’m still enrolled at Franklin Pierce University

My third term began two weeks ago. This term I have Principles of Accounting I and Composition I. I like them both. When I first signed up for these classes, I wasn’t sure how I was going to like accounting since it deals with working with numbers. I hadn’t been a fan of Principles of Finance and struggled through that class. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but I did pass the course with flying colors after working hard at learning the curriculum.

Accounting is sort of fun. It is task oriented, which I don’t mind, but I like seeing how different accounts affect each other to make the final balance. I could be possible pick this as a major when I sign up for continuing on with a Bachelor Degree.

The composition course is fun too. I knew this course would be to my liking. I love writing, but all my experience has been with fiction and blogging. This course makes me think about issues and how to develop an argument for an essay or a report on the subject matter. It is technical writing. I can make this class work, but I prefer fiction writing overall.

My Goal: to make the Dean’s List once again.

For the past two terms, I have made the Dean’s List. I did this even though I wasn’t crazy about the course matter I was learning. The class on careers was interesting, and I aced that class easily, Finance, on the other hand, was to me, boring. I had to fight to stay away while reading the textbook. There was a lot of reading too.

Online College Classes are equal to homeschooling.

The last term I had Principles of Management and Business Law. Business Law was parched reading. I think I did fall asleep several times while reading the textbook. Management was a bit easier to comprehend, but that too was a struggle to stay awake with the amount of reading I had to do.

I did ace both classes regardless with a higher score than the previous term.

So far this term, the grades are up there. Hopefully, I can keep them there.

Work in Progress

I have begun working on a new story. You can watch my progress in the sidebar on the right. Lemons, Dilemmas, and Oh Baby is a contemporary romance. It is a slow go this is naturally due to my limited time I can work on the manuscript.

Thanks for stopping by for Coffee. Come back again soon.

Now that I’m at the beginning of my second term of online courses I must say that I have mixed feelings about the process.

I like them!

You do have to be self-sufficient when it comes to learning. Discipline is a must. The deadlines must be met. You are given the essential tools for survival. That would be the textbooks.

One doesn’t need to be at a complete loss. Make sure you know how to use the internet to research what you need to know, and read the textbook.

I know, you don’t like to read the book. Well, read it anyways. You won’t be sitting in class listening to your professor go on and on with a lecture. Your lecture, if you are lucky will be a PowerPoint of about ten slides. That’s it.

You will have to go online and research if you need to know more to understand your assignments or discussions.

The tests are open book. They are still hard regardless.

I also like the time I’ve saved in not having to travel across the state to sit in a classroom. It would be an hour drive one way for me. That would be two hours spent on the road when I could be reading that textbook instead.

What I don’t like…

There isn’t much I don’t like about the type of course study. I have the discipline for doing what I need to do when I need to do it. Especially, when I set my mind to doing something that I want to do passionately.

I did teach myself to self-publish, didn’t I?

When I’m done with school, there will be loads of stories to come. Which leads me to the other thing I don’t like. That would be not having enough time to write stories. I have all these new ideas popping into my head that I keep jotting down in a journal I keep at my desk. I read something in one of my textbooks, and a light comes on, jot that one down.

Seriously, if you want to return to school, then do it!

Online courses need discipline and self-sufficiency.

There are hybrid courses too. You do some of the work online and the rest in the classroom.

Or, there is old school, 100% classroom.