![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusVisited the University of WA today.
I decided to do the group tour with my school, because that would make me go. I tend to "get busy" and not make time for such important things.
I learned that I've been misinformed on a variety of fronts:
- On the positive side, UW has pledged 30% of their incoming transfer slots to community college students. Woo-hoo!
- The academic world is flooded with college-level teachers right now, and the tenure track is being replaced with "temp" teachers who are without benefits, work part-time and often divide their teaching between several colleges. There is a demand for secondary education, but I will not teach children, mainly because they irritate me at best, and walk all over me at worst. My reasons for school are various, but one of these is a lifestyle change: I want out of the standard workweek/two weeks vacation. I'd rather work harder 9 months of the year and then spend the summer writing/doing retreat/translating. That I happen to gravitate towards/love teaching/have experience teaching is a real plus.
- It seems the requirements for my school's AA degree is four classes short of the general distribution requirements for UW.
- I have to send my high school files back to my school, and have them at least send my school transcript in a sealed envelope. Previously I was told to just bring them in. This is not good for me, because my high school doesn't exist any more, and my high school transcript is a mess.
Oh, the courses are great.
Science encompasses Biology, Physiology, Geology, Physics.
I had two years of French and four years of German, including 2 months as an exchange student.
Art and music classes up the yin-yang.
English courses that included the rise of the novel, Beowulf, the Bible as Literature, Chaucer, Russian Literature, Shakespeare.
Class sizes so small it was virtually private tutoring.
But.
My little school was dying, and didn't have enough students for a 12th grade my senior year -- I was the last student actually (the prior year there was only three of us).
So I did a second 11th grade (taking different courses then I had the year before, as a lot of classes could be taken at either the 11th or 12th grade level). Then I finished 12th grade early the following year. There are letters in my file to indicate that the school did not, for financial reasons, have a 12th grade, and that I was a student in good standing. Then there's another letter indicating my brother and I were enrolled in the same year for 12th grade.
But the transcript for 12th grade just... stops. After the winter quarter there's no indication that I graduated, no listing of final grades, nothing.
That notwithstanding, I'm writing my personal statements, and in order to do that I have to narrow down my major/minor.
I have three directions I could take.
1 - One could be to say "fuck the career" and do what I love. In which case I'd go for Sanskrit and Tibetan and Buddhist studies, working it out as I go.
Really, UW's not the place for Tibetan - Naropa University is. They have a program with an internship with the Nalanda Translation committee, which *sighs* is awesome. (There's also programs at Harvard, UVA, UofM, University of Madision....). Frankly, if I were to do that, I'd be best off going to Kathmandu University in Nepal, though there's no Financial Aid, etc., and all of these colleges are expensive. This would be the end of me and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wildernessguru, though I've checked with him about his willingness, if it were possible, to move to Colorado if I went to Naropa. He was iffy.
2 - Another could be to go for the English Master's, gamble on the future job, and enjoy the rich opportunity to read and feed my writing addiction (and maybe write, yes? Write, write? *pants*). This could dovetail with publishing Buddhist stuff and be quite worthwhile, and I could minor in Sanskrit at least.
3 - Another could be to go for the TOEFL/TOESOL. I have Laubach's Training, the WA Refugee Assistance Program training, Service Learning, and Tutoring to prepare me, and it seems to be the crossover point where my Asian Studies and English language meet. It's also meaningful. On the other hand, most of the jobs for this are in other countries, or at least that's my understanding. (Though a minor in Sanskrit/Buddhist stuff would make more sense.)
I think #3 would be the easiest sell to UW, and I could change my major later since they're so inter-related.
(Oh, and there's my fallback, #4 - complete the nine courses for the Paralegal certificate at Edmonds and work the same kind of work I've always done, with greater job security and 20% more pay.)
*much head-scratching here at Icarus central*
I decided to do the group tour with my school, because that would make me go. I tend to "get busy" and not make time for such important things.
I learned that I've been misinformed on a variety of fronts:
- On the positive side, UW has pledged 30% of their incoming transfer slots to community college students. Woo-hoo!
- The academic world is flooded with college-level teachers right now, and the tenure track is being replaced with "temp" teachers who are without benefits, work part-time and often divide their teaching between several colleges. There is a demand for secondary education, but I will not teach children, mainly because they irritate me at best, and walk all over me at worst. My reasons for school are various, but one of these is a lifestyle change: I want out of the standard workweek/two weeks vacation. I'd rather work harder 9 months of the year and then spend the summer writing/doing retreat/translating. That I happen to gravitate towards/love teaching/have experience teaching is a real plus.
- It seems the requirements for my school's AA degree is four classes short of the general distribution requirements for UW.
- I have to send my high school files back to my school, and have them at least send my school transcript in a sealed envelope. Previously I was told to just bring them in. This is not good for me, because my high school doesn't exist any more, and my high school transcript is a mess.
Oh, the courses are great.
Science encompasses Biology, Physiology, Geology, Physics.
I had two years of French and four years of German, including 2 months as an exchange student.
Art and music classes up the yin-yang.
English courses that included the rise of the novel, Beowulf, the Bible as Literature, Chaucer, Russian Literature, Shakespeare.
Class sizes so small it was virtually private tutoring.
But.
My little school was dying, and didn't have enough students for a 12th grade my senior year -- I was the last student actually (the prior year there was only three of us).
So I did a second 11th grade (taking different courses then I had the year before, as a lot of classes could be taken at either the 11th or 12th grade level). Then I finished 12th grade early the following year. There are letters in my file to indicate that the school did not, for financial reasons, have a 12th grade, and that I was a student in good standing. Then there's another letter indicating my brother and I were enrolled in the same year for 12th grade.
But the transcript for 12th grade just... stops. After the winter quarter there's no indication that I graduated, no listing of final grades, nothing.
That notwithstanding, I'm writing my personal statements, and in order to do that I have to narrow down my major/minor.
I have three directions I could take.
1 - One could be to say "fuck the career" and do what I love. In which case I'd go for Sanskrit and Tibetan and Buddhist studies, working it out as I go.
Really, UW's not the place for Tibetan - Naropa University is. They have a program with an internship with the Nalanda Translation committee, which *sighs* is awesome. (There's also programs at Harvard, UVA, UofM, University of Madision....). Frankly, if I were to do that, I'd be best off going to Kathmandu University in Nepal, though there's no Financial Aid, etc., and all of these colleges are expensive. This would be the end of me and
wildernessguru, though I've checked with him about his willingness, if it were possible, to move to Colorado if I went to Naropa. He was iffy.2 - Another could be to go for the English Master's, gamble on the future job, and enjoy the rich opportunity to read and feed my writing addiction (and maybe write, yes? Write, write? *pants*). This could dovetail with publishing Buddhist stuff and be quite worthwhile, and I could minor in Sanskrit at least.
3 - Another could be to go for the TOEFL/TOESOL. I have Laubach's Training, the WA Refugee Assistance Program training, Service Learning, and Tutoring to prepare me, and it seems to be the crossover point where my Asian Studies and English language meet. It's also meaningful. On the other hand, most of the jobs for this are in other countries, or at least that's my understanding. (Though a minor in Sanskrit/Buddhist stuff would make more sense.)
I think #3 would be the easiest sell to UW, and I could change my major later since they're so inter-related.
(Oh, and there's my fallback, #4 - complete the nine courses for the Paralegal certificate at Edmonds and work the same kind of work I've always done, with greater job security and 20% more pay.)
*much head-scratching here at Icarus central*