So, if you're like me, you're pushing fifty for all it's worth; when you were a teenager, your father told you to take shorthand and typing so you could "be a secretary"; also, you hated high school and wanted to backpack through Europe (or something) the year between high school and college (like they do in Britain, only they call it a Gap Year) but your parents forced you to go to community college instead so you could stay on the insurance; your uncle told you to "join a church so you could find a good husband"; or your first husband told you "you'll never finish" as you spent four years in community college while working forty hours a week when you were in your early thirties; . If you're like me you also have an undergraduate degree in a liberal arts, in my case, English, and for which you quit your good-paying/benefited, (boring-ass, soul-killing) union job at forty-two to go back to college. And the year you graduate, finally, the economy goes into the toilet and you're unable to find any but the most menial of jobs for years. For Example. Not including those two weeks you were a trainer for the €ensus--that rocked.
Or, maybe not.
At any rate, that's basically who, what, and where I am right now. Graduate school was never really on my radar. I didn't think I was smart enough, resourceful enough, persistent enough, and deserving of a degree, let alone a graduate level degree. It just was never something I ever considered. I still can't believe I managed to get a BA, even three years later. *shakinghead*
So the three years I sat around looking at, applying for, or working crappy jobs I started thinking about it. Clearly English was not a good idea for an advanced degree for someone who did not want to teach, which I don't. So what else? What did I enjoy? Hmmm...
When I went back to community college at age thirty-two, I enrolled as a psychology major. I had just, finally, had my head tightened on properly with a new drug called Prozac, and I quit spending every day wishing I were dead, and started thinking about the future. Good stuff, that. I still take it. That drug changed my life. So psychology was on the table for a long time.
I looked around for universities in California that offered a MFCC programs. I found one I really, really liked at Fresno State. Unfortunately, I needed to take the GRE and garner up three references in three weeks--the deadline was rapidly looming. I could have probably shaken down the references in time, and I could have taken the GRE, but it's about $200- to take that test, and if I'm going to take it, I want a good score. Three weeks was not near enough time. So I decided that if in a year, I still wanted to do it, I would prepare for it. I already had the grades (3.0 or higher GPA).
In a year, I had a job offer in Reno, for what I hoped would be a legup/foot in the door via a crappy job hoping to eventually turn that into something better with AT and T Internet Services (call center for DSL subscribers who were unable to get online). It was so crappy, and I sucked so badly at it, even my trainer suggested I quit rather than be fired--because I sucked that badly and it was only a matter of time. And oh yeah, that no being late or absent, including lunches or breaks, more than once over the course of a year. A guy had a heart attack at his desk, refused to go to the hospital, the paramedics finally convinced him to go, he was out four days then came right back to work, and he was written up for attendance. One more write-up, and he would be gone. I am not kidding. I meet people in Reno all the time who worked there or knew someone who worked there and we all agreed--it was some B.A.D. S.H.I.T. And as someone with diabetes? I get sick. A lot.
So anyways....
I also looked at UC Merced as it had just opened--it was a brand new campus with all new facilities--we had driven by a couple of times on our trips from our home in Chico to visit family in Los Angeles numerous times. It was a beautiful campus and a gorgeous area. They even had married housing. Unfortunately, they didn't offer any majors I was interested in. It appears UCM is going to focus on the sciences from their graduate majors.
I talked to the department chair of Chico State, where my undergrad degree is from, and he said he was all ready for me to come to grad school. He and some of my professors. I could take the GRE at my convenience!! Just come to Chico! But...I just didn't see getting an MA in English. The BA hadn't really done anything for me (except make me proud); WTH would an MA in English do for me besides pile up debt?
Additionally, I knew some people in the program, and honestly? And I'm not saying this to be mean, but to be truthful, they just weren't very bright. I had read their stuff when I had undergrad classes with them, their shining faces looking at me so needfully, wanting my approval of the piece of crap they asked me to read....and I would smile, and nod, and tell them it was good, because my advice was never taken, I'd learned. And it made me feel that if I were accepted there (which was a given based on feedback), that maybe I wasn't very bright, either... So I moved on.
Next I tried the psychology department at Chico State. I even talked to the Director of counseling services there who I had gotten to know fairly well when I was a student there. She was very enthusiastic. Since I didn't have an undergraduate degree in psychology, there were a number of classes I would need to take prior to applying and being admitted or taken co-currently. Ugh. I felt the urgency of time and aging upon me. So I deferred grad school while I worked one rinky-dink job or another while in survival mode, and thought about it some more.
To be continued...
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