Back to School

I was tempted to call this “What Was I Thinking: Part II”.
I’ve enrolled in grad school – well, a 1-year graduate diploma program actually.

Royal Roads University has a flexible admissions policy that let me squeak into their blended Graduate Diploma in Learning and Technology  program even though don’t have an undergrad degree.  The two-week residency portion starts July 18.
Victoria, British Columbia here I come!

The rest of the year-long program is online. Niggling at the back of my mind is the fact that DipLAT is the first year of a Masters program, but we’ll see how the first year goes before entertaining any grandiose thoughts. Now I’ll find out if all that stuff I listed as experience and qualifications on my resume will actually cut the mustard when it comes to learning how to do Academic writing and research. Already I’m looking back at all the missed opportunities to blog or post or comment on my Rhizomatic Learning Network because I told myself I was too busy to write well.  That practice would have been so valuable had I engaged each time I had the urge to participate.

Obviously I’m going to have to learn a more formal way of expressing myself. I’m writing this BEFORE tackling the course blogging assignment, so it’s my one last chance at being as deliberately off-the cuff and informal as possible for me – and reference absolutely no sources.

My first two courses are learning theory and intro to research. It’s the research I dread – always avoided it where possible in the past (because lazy).  I keep telling myself to take a deep breath and enjoy the ride – you’ll learn citation and reading soulless research papers as you go. But sometimes I’m not listening.  So far the online pre-residency portion of the program has me both hopeful and fearful. It’s tremendously interesting, but I’m nowhere nearly as articulate as some of the more experienced members of my cohort. It will take some effort at self-awareness not to mask my insecurity with comedy. Caught myself at it earlier this week in the chat on a live introductory session – was getting great responses from the instructor – but deliberately backed off when I realized it was mainly superficial. (Sigh), so much to learn besides course content.

I may be tapping into the Rhizo community when I’m feeling particularly lost – even though I can’t see when I’ll have time to lurk there very much for the next 15 months.