It was good. It was long (from 4:30 to 9:15) but it was good. I like both my professors and I’m impressed with the diversity (age, race, background, interests) of my classmates. There is going to be a lot of discussions in the classes and not as much formal writing as I expected. (I still have two more classes I’m taking but one is an orientation class — more about the process of becoming licensed, I think — and one is a seminar so likely not as much formal writing there either.) I’m sure this might not be true of the whole program but at least in these two classes, most of the writing we’ll be doing are overviews of what we’re reading to bring to class in order to discuss them. There are a couple of papers but they’re not research papers and there’s one individual project that the professor didn’t get to explain last night. She gave us a rubric about it but I haven’t really looked at it yet. She said it wouldn’t make sense anyway until she could show us an example and I’m thinking it must be a presentation of some kind because she couldn’t show us ‘cuz the computer was ganked.
On the one hand, I was hoping for more writing. On the other hand, I’m relieved because I have an awful lot of writing to do in the rest of my life. I also like class discussions especially with a group with so many varying points of view. And in our second class we are broken up into teams and I like my other team members even though or because we are all pretty different people.
Other bullet points about class last night:
- No one else had an iPad, which I didn’t expect.
- In fact, no one else brought any kind of computing device, which I really didn’t expect. I doubt I’ll take many notes for the second class though — it’s mostly discussion.
- Both my teachers are funny. They are also working counselors with a lot of experience in counseling. (This wasn’t true at OSU.) This I like.
- I dumped my dinner on my lap during break. This is typical of me. Luckily it was just California Rolls so other than a little soy sauce on my skirt, it was ok.
- I was not the oldest person in my classes but I was among the older students.
- I out-ed myself as a homeschooling mother right away because we had to go around the room in both groups and talk about ourselves. I figured with all of this discussion it’d come out sooner or later so why not just make the leap. One professor expressed sympathy ‘cuz he thought it sounded stressful. The other one asked a lot of questions because she thinks unschooling sounds fascinating.
- I have both classes in the same room. Very convenient.
- The program is definitely geared to working students and most of my classmates are going part-time and taking advantage of the flexibility. Even though I’m hoping to crank through the program, it’s nice to know that if life interferes that I’ll be able to rethink that strategy. Also speaking of diversity, one of my classmates is a welder, one is a wellness consultant, one is a prison guard and one is a stay-at-home dad. That’s just to give you an idea. Oh and most of my classmates are women. Out of everyone in both classes, only three are guys. That’s not so diverse, I know. That ratio was true at OSU from what I saw, too.
The coursework is definitely going to be interesting. I had a moment’s fleeting sadness about the hard-core academia at OSU that I am missing but then came to my senses because I do have a life and two kids and various jobs and frankly OSU would have stretched me maybe more than I could handle. I doubt I would have come out as a homeschooling mom so quickly at OSU. I doubt that if I had, that it would have been a welcome confession. The learning here is different (not as stringently academic) but no less challenging (because it’s really about working with people who are not like you). If I’m serious about having a counseling career it’s going to be a greater benefit to me to spend time learning how to listen. Also, as far as academics go, some of that is up to me. Like one of our professors said that we need to read the whole book but we really only need to READ five chapters (because we’ll be presenting those five chapters to our group as the weeks go on). But I’m going to READ the whole book. It’s nice to know that people can skim if they need to but me, I’m not going to skim.
I am happy that at least for this semester I can keep up with my freelance stuff. I’ll still need to be careful about what I take on but I have some projects coming up and I won’t be having to get all frantic about fitting them in.


















