Monday, February 02, 2009

Officially a College Student Once More

Forgive me if this is incoherent, it's been a freaking long day, and I'm exhausted.

Friday, I met with the PBL (post-baccalaureate licensure) lady at the college to see what I needed to do in order to get accepted into the program. Besides the usual application stuff, I need to take the PRAXIS I within the next few weeks, get myself fingerprinted, and resign myself to the idea of doing 40+ hours of online classes all summer.

Yup, the "intensive" PBL that will let me earn a teaching certificate in three semesters--summer, fall, spring--is a lot more online classes than I thought. In fact, there's nothing on campus all summer, which makes sense; school's out over the summer! (Duh. I don't know why I was thinking I'd be on campus.) We'll meet three times this summer for three straight days, then do about three weeks of e-learnings in between. OY. Needless to say, I can't work full time and do school more than full-time, but this will hopefully be okay since I can hopefully get some monetary support in grants and loans. (Hopefully.)

This means: classes all summer, a couple more classes and classroom observation in the fall, then student teaching in the spring. Wheeeee!

But! Even though I have a BA in English Writing, I'm missing two classes which are necessary to the teaching program there. One of them I'm pretty sure I can take this fall. (I need to email that professor, actually, to make sure.) And one of them is only offered in the spring, and I can't take "how to teach composition" (I can't remember the official name) WHILE I'm teaching composition during my student teaching. So I went down to campus today, talked to the professor teaching it, and she let me in two weeks late! (I've only missed four class days, since it's a Tues/Thurs class.) I still need to track down one book, and catch up with some reading, and it would be great to get together with another student and go over their classroom notes with them to catch up.... but I'm in!

I needed to adjust my work schedule a little bit, but it's fine. 9:30-10:45 every Tuesday and Thursday isn't a big deal. And it looks like I don't have a TON of catching up to do, though she does seem big on taking notes on every bit of assigned reading. These will all be in a portfolio which is (I think) 35% of our grade at the end of the semester.

Good heavens, wish me luck! Pray for me! Etc! It'll be hectic for a week or two, especially since I hate change and hate thinking about change, arghhh! But then I'll settle into a rhythm and it'll be fine.

And I am kinda excited to be in school again.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Congratulations! That's so exciting! And what an awesome professor to let you in late. :)

Sarah said...

Good for you! Way to take your life by the reigns. You can do it!!!!! :)

Anonymous said...

You think you are excited?? Of COURSE you are! And you do NOT hate change. Men hate change, women thrive on it. It is WONDERFUL, and I am so proud of you. You took the initiative and are soooooo smart and you are going to be the greatest teacher in the world, and it will all be worth it. (I will be your cheerleader; call me anytime!!!)

Linda Boyd said...

Yay! I'm soooo happy for you. Can I be your cheerleader too? You know, I'm very bendy!

Making Megan said...

EEEKK!!! I totally understand why you are nervous. (You know how I freak out!
After being out of school for two years, it is really cool that you are going back. Im a bit jellous, but Im supper glad for you, Mrs. Nicholson. (:

Anonymous said...

Yes, more than a bit jealous! - But, not jealous of the stress and pressure. Bravo for you! The time will fly - no better time to get on with this than NOW!