One of the features that I enjoy on my most used social media site is the one where you can see what you had posted on that same day in years past. Not too long ago I ran across a status I had written describing my excitement of starting college and classes. Looking back, it feels like it happened a million years ago. I remember agonizing about what my major would be and feeling torn between social work, psychology, and music. College was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was great because I had the opportunity to meet new people, manage a schedule, and experience life in another structured and sheltered environment that was in a lot of ways like my home life. I learned a lot about assertiveness when I had to challenge grades with certain teachers. Before graduation I had to advocate for myself when it came down to required classes for graduation and I found a loophole and used it to my advantage. I learned about discipline and while I never perfected the art of studying, I learned about the benefits of procrastination and racing to meet a deadline while still delivering a quality scholarly work. College taught me the importance of time management and balancing conflicting priorities. The untimely deaths of several of my classmates reminded me of the importance of appreciating and living life to the fullest. Looking back, there’s not a lot I would change–except maybe being a bit more open minded and allowing myself to have more fun instead of being in the books all the time. Ah well.
Tag Archives: education
Starter Pack
I saw this picture and initially laughed but then got annoyed almost immediately afterward. When I finished college I had a decision to make. I could go the safer route and look for a job right out of college or I could pursue a graduate degree. I knew that I had a better chance of getting married if I just had a bachelor’s degree. But I didn’t want to put my life on hold for something that I wasn’t sure would happen. I was 21 years young and without any hint of a significant other in sight. So I moved across the country, and started and completed a masters degree. But let me back up a bit. From a young age I was taught that good men looked for women who went to church and were active in some capacity. So during my masters program I found a church and started being active by singing quite often and taking on small responsibilities. Religion or maybe I should say church going, isn’t usually a man’s favorite pastime. It’s usually overrun with women with emphasis on emotions. We can’t forget that there’s a double standard for women. They are taught that if a man truly loves them he will respect them by respecting their vow of abstinence or celibacy until marriage. I have a theory that this kind of thinking lends itself to unrealistic expectations and very very bitter women. Needless to say, my “experiment” on getting a significant other was not successful and seemed to alienate myself even further from any serious prospects. I’ve never been one of those “I don’t need a man” women, but I can certainly understand some of the emotions behind it. An education can make women more critical as they will only pay attention to men that are on the same education level as them. I don’t think there are many women who want to feel like they are marrying down. Strike one. A very strong traditional religious mindset where you believe that you only need God and that’s it. Couple this with a belief that good men are only found in church and will be happily celibate until marriage. Strike two. Let’s not forget about having a career and trying to move upward. Women in this position are usually planning to put child bearing off for a while because they want to be at a good place in their career. They put in long hours, they don’t date, they buy houses and drive nice cars. While they may be lonely, that feeling is remedied by more work and by girlfriends in a similar position. No man required. Strike three. There’s a hard truth to the picture and it’s not pretty. Perhaps it’s time to rethink some priorities and some expectations. Myself included. 
Challenges of Adulthood
It’s funny how adulthood doesn’t always turn out the way that you planned as a kid. I remember having a grand vision for my life as a kid that included doing what I wanted when I wanted to. Each birthday was a year closer to being 18 which was the magic number in my mind where I would suddenly emancipate from the endless rules of my parents. One perk of having a non-traditional education meant that i had a little more time than most my age. After finishing high school a few weeks after I turned 17 I decided that I wanted to take a break so I did. For the next year I chilled at home and took community college classes with the intention to hit the ground running when I began college. The great thing about that year was that I could collect my thoughts with minimal responsibilities. During that time I sold books door to door and even sold knives. I know a lot of people who went directly from high school to college and still had no idea what they wanted to do with their life. They go through a year or two and drift from major to major spending large amounts of money they don’t really have. The thing about young adulthood is that you expect to have more answers than you did as a kid when in fact you just encounter more questions. You want the world to be black and white but sometimes it ends up being a really weird shade of gray. The thing I like about being an adult is that it was similar to what I imagined as a kid. I do what I want, when I want. The sad part is that there are also hundreds of stipulations to that simple fact. The stakes are higher, the consequences for stupid mistakes can easily wreck the future. It’s similar to driving in a fog on a dark night. You know where you’re going but still can’t see five feet ahead of you and your headlights just illuminate how much more fog is ahead.
My Math Story
Many of us had a subject in school in which the relationship between it and use could be characterized by the word “complicated.” For me, that subject was math. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that anyone is born hating math. I once read an article that asserted that hating math is a result of how we are raised and taught to do it. I remember learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division tables through memorization and songs. However, for some reason, my dislike for math seemed to deepen. It wasn’t until 11th grade that I realized I had a knack for creating a spreadsheet of a budget and calculating profit margins. This was a bright moment in my dark relationship with math. My experience with math was further complicated by the fact that while I was homeschooled, math was not a strong point with either of my parents. I did my high school education through a correspondence course. That meant that I got a math book and a workbook and I had to teach myself the concepts. This was an extremely hard thing to do as I got into advanced algebra and geometry. Even with the help of tutors it was not easy going. I managed to pass both classes with grades that probably should never be reported. It was a good thing that I managed to escape trigonometry, calculus and other higher level maths that most people have to take. It’s funny how certain things decrease in significance as we get older. I was genuinely stressed out by my algebra homework. Yet, after passing the class (thankfully), other than critical thinking skills, algebra is a thing of the past. I’m not tested on my ability to solve for x or any other operation that requires a lot of steps to solve. That’s why I think it’s so important to not make mountains out of molehills. You acknowledge it, you confront it, and you move on. Chances are the things you worried about ten years ago aren’t even relevant now and you wasted valuable energy that could have become something productive.
ABD life
Earlier this year I posted about the dilemma of finding a topic for my dissertation. I can honestly say that at the beginning of this thing I had no idea the time and energy that it would entail. Any advanced degree in the social sciences typically involves a lot of writing and this particular one has been no different. Two LOOOOOONG years of classwork have recently ended with the last class being a doctoral level statistics class that I thought I was going to epically fail. However, I passed by the literal skin of my own teeth with a “B.” While I like distance learning, I also like the interactions that come along with being physically present in a traditional classroom. While I’ve been consistent with keeping up with the expectations of my program and turning in my assignments on time, I haven’t taken it seriously. It’s been a time consuming hobby. Not because I don’t take my life and professional goals seriously, but because I picked a fairly broad concentration that combines work I’ve completed in other disciplines. The next hurdle is that of starting, working on, and completing my dissertation. Thankfully I’ve finally arrived at a topic and after 3 months of emails and subsequent rejections have finally finalized a dissertation committee. So now I can categorize myself as ABD (all but dissertation) in the scholarly world. I can add “PhD. Candidate” to my email signature and even apply for jobs in higher ed. An added bonus was the fact that I could take a three month break and still be on track to graduate on time. All that being said, one of the interesting facts I learned this summer was that only 1.9% of people who start a doctorate complete it. That means that 98.1% of people who start one do not finish. That fact is motivation for me to finish what I started and to add another set of initials behind my name. The school thing isn’t finished and won’t be for a bit but with some dedication and consistency combined by my decision to take school seriously at this point in the game I’ll conquer this last mountain.
Black and White
One of the benefits and perhaps one of the setbacks of being in school for years and studying human behaviors and personalities is that you see the world being less black and white than you have originally thought. Classes that shock you and challenge you to critically think can also make you able to think in the gray. This is one thing that I’ve learned to function in for the purpose of doing my job. I deal with things that are not absolutes on a daily basis because people are involved. They aren’t numbers that can easily be manipulated to get the same exact result every time. The process is often messy and involves variables that were not considered at the beginning. I’ve learned to take outside factors into consideration when making a clinical judgment on someone’s behaviors or actions and to hear both sides of the story before aligning too closely with one client. It’s not an easy task to do and sometimes involves feeling uncomfortable. However, despite my ability to function in the grey and not make rash decisions or judgment calls on behaviors without knowing as much as possible, I still like the black and white. Decisions are so much easier to make when they are clear cut. Professionally I’ve learned to work in the gray but personally, I like the black and white because it simplifies life. The “all or nothing” mentality helps me to stay focused and decreases distractions. However this makes it easy to swing to extremes without even attempting to find any middle ground. You make decisions and stick to them without being worried about repercussions. It’s easier to be assertive and attentive to what’s going on around you. But I think that it’s easier to miss nuances and smaller things because the focus is on the black and white instead of making allowances for the grey things in life. The truth of the matter is that life is about adjustment and change because our lives will almost never go exactly according to plan 100% of the time.
Building and Thought Distortions
I’ve always been a fan of strategic procrastination but also getting things done in time and meeting deadlines. Recently I’ve been putting off some things that need to be done within the next six week or they will derail my educational goals. While I have been in school for the past few years, I can honestly say that it’s more of a necessary evil than anything else because I want the credentials for my chosen career field. So one of the reasons why I’m still procrastinating with getting some of this work done is because of thought distortions. That’s one great thing about being a therapist. I know when my thought patterns aren’t logical–but I digress. I’ve always been someone who lives in black or white. While I am fine functioning in the grey for clients or for professional reasons, it’s different on a personal level. So the thought (which is NOT logical by the way) is that by completing what I have to do I’ll also be shutting the door or saying goodbye forever to another dream of mine that may not end up being compatible with my current choices. As I start the process of overcoming the procrastination and finishing some of these tasks, I have the mental picture of making a coffin. Cutting and sanding the sides and making some intricate designs on the sides. This coffin will be used to bury a specific dream that will be gone away forever never to return. But I know that’s a thought distortion and that it’s not really true. It can be so easy to get caught up in those distortions and not take the time to actually challenge them and i am no exception to that. However, the truth of the matter is that I’m just going to have to push through it and get the work done. And I will. Because of all the things I play around with, my life isn’t one of them.
Annoying Homeschoolers
I ran into this article a few days ago and found it quite intriguing. I remembering people asking my mother questions about socialization and what we were missing in out in “real” school. While my social skills may not be the best known to man, I know plenty of kids who went to more traditional school and still exhibit a lack of social skills. Homeschooling gave me the freedom to do what I wanted (within reason). In a world where people are being taught the same thing, it’s nice to have the chance to think outside of the box. The thing about homeschooling is that it’s something that a lot of people do not understand. There is a societal expectation that children should be institutionalized between the hours of 8am to 3pm in order to learn the things they need to be able to succeed in life. The thought behind homeschooling is that learning can happen outside of those hours and that every kid is different and therefore they need more of a tailored educational plan. I was probably one of the annoying homeschoolers mentioned in the article growing up. I was a bookworm and somewhat of a know it all. Now, I will admit that homeschooled kids tend to stand out when compared to other kids. I’ve noticed it myself many times. However there’s something to be said about having an experience that many people have never had. Plus, I think that many times it is the un-homeschooled people who find homeschoolers annoying. But that’s just my opinion.
MSW/ MBA
This article was super interesting to me. As someone who has an MSW and also knows a lot of people who have MBA’s it struck me as odd that we are just now connecting these two degrees. Personally, I think that the intersection of social work and business would produce more well rounded professionals with better people skills and a better understanding of personality theories. I’ve read other articles that have stated that getting an MBA is becoming so popular that it’s weight has often been disregarded. The truth of the matter is that many business people could use social work skills just like social workers could use more business skills. From my perspective, I think that learning how to start and run a non-profit and having the necessary tools to help it to succeed would be a good thing for social workers. Being in a profession that is thankless and where you rarely actually make the salary that you’re worth, an additional degree could give the needed edge to reach a higher socioeconomic status. As someone who appreciates education that is practical and gives one the skills necessary to succeed in their chosen field, I think that the MSW-MBA degree will become quite popular because it’s the best of both worlds. The combination of the skills sets in these disciplines will be something that will be highly coveted in coming years.
Being non-realistic
One of the most common pieces of relationship advice is to be what you’re seeking. If you want someone mature, be mature. If you want someone clean, be clean. The thing about this whole train of thought is that life isn’t always that simple. While this might work in certain contexts, it’s not an absolute rule. Opposites attract, people change, life happens. One of the things I knew that I couldn’t expect or require in a significant other when starting my doctorate was a similar education attainment as me. I’ve met so many people who’ve used their education as a crutch for their loneliness. This has been especially true of women. The fact of the matter is that complementarity is more important than mirroring. If it was that simple we would just clone ourselves. I don’t expect my future significant other to have a stupid amount of degrees. I’m not necessarily requiring even a bachelors. There are so many other factors that matter more. I’m more concerned about fathering skills, ability to provide, family dynamics, and genuineness than a piece of paper saying that some program of study was completed. Because at the end of the day, that’s not a challenge or an issue unless someone in the relationship makes it one. A significant other should make you want to be the best version of you as possible and sometimes that route includes education. Mutual respect and a teamwork mentality will go a long way. We get so caught up on the physical and what they do for a living that we forget about the daily characteristics and habits that make them who they are as people. The truth is that an educated man can beat you just as hard as an uneducated one. And while that example may be a bit out there, the point still stands. Stop trying to find a human mirror and look for someone whose dreams, goals, and ambitions mesh with yours. Values should be shared but you want a different perspective that complements your own. These impossible standards have to be re-evaluated.
Alisha's Angle 