Asa Jay's weblog

In my quest for a four year degree, I am now one class down.  After looking at my information from the registrars office it would appear I’m in for about 20 more classes before I can graduate.  12 of those classes are in the cohort program specifically for the Organizational Management degree I am going for.  The other eight will fill in General Requirements for graduation from Whitworth College.  Actually, if I’ve read everything correctly, I will have one more class than I really need to graduate, but that’s okay since I need to maintain full-time student status in order to continue receiving my financial aid.  Barring any problems, I should have my degree by September of 2008.

Right now, September 2008 seems a long way off.  That’s almost three years, which seems odd considering I had a full 64 credits transfer to Whitworth; half of the required 126 for graduation.  You’d think that would put me at the half way point in a four year degree; needing only two years to complete.  Well, if I was simply attending classes during the day and didn’t have a job, I guess that would probably be true.  However, in the accelerated course format that I am enrolled in, two years is going to take a little bit longer.  I’ll be in school all of 2006, all of 2007 and a bit over half of 2008.  Overall I guess it’s not that bad.

Starting in February of 2007 I will be in the structured cohort portion.  This is the next logical “entry point” for me.  There are two entry points each year, one in February and one later in the fall I’m not exactly sure when.  My plan is to get all my general requirements out of the way prior to entry in the cohort so that when I actually finish the cohort portion, I will be done and ready for my diploma.  I have heard it can be very difficult for a student to continue after the cohort, having to finish up with lower level courses to satisfy general requirements.  By getting mine out of the way up front, I’ll be finishing the program on a high note, ready to put my education to work for me instead of trudging through more generals.  The other neat thing about the cohort is that I will enter it with a group of students, who I will have for each and every one of the 12 classes in the cohort.  Unless students drop out, the class will remain the same for all 12 sessions, the only thing changing being the subject and instructors.  I’m told this really lends itself well to the education of each student since a sense of teamwork develops and with that the students become stronger together and finish better.  I’m looking forward to that.

The cohort is already structured for me, but until then I need to keep my own schedule full.  To help me with that I have found I can enroll in many classes ahead of time.  Right now, I am enrolled in classes through July of 2006.  I’m keeping my schedule on line here at asajay.com in a WebCalendar which you can view.  This makes it handy for me to check my schedule from anywhere as long as I have access to a computer, the Internet and a browser.  By making a schedule for myself I’m able to keep myself on track.  This is the longest forward looking project I’ve done ever, I think.  Even when we were building our house, our plan was only about a year out though it did take almost a year and a half.

So I’m one class down, Research and Writing is now chalked up as an elective toward completion of my goal.  My next class is the Sociology of Death and Dying.  Yea, I know it sounds morbid but I’m at an age where my parents are getting pretty old and there have been many other deaths of people close to me in the last few years.  I’m actually looking forward to the course to see what it delivers.  The cool part is that it satisfies a general requirement, part of my plan to get done as quickly as possible.  I start tonight; we’ll see how it shakes out.

Asa Jay

I’ve just finished my Research and Writing course at Whitworth tonight. During our last night, our instructor took some time with us individually to solicit feedback about class, and to give us personalized feedback about her impressions of our writing. I found what she had to say enlightening and that I’m not really what I write, when I write for class.

I’m not really into writing essays. It probably goes back to that “think too much” thing, and the “test anxiety” I’ve had in the past. Here I am writing freely and coming through pretty clear, but when writing an essay, I seem to start “not being myself.” Subconsciously, I think I knew that was going on, but I think it took someone I respected, like my class instructor, to tell me what was really happening and make me see it up close.

Part of our class was spent on our own time posting messages to a discussion board. I did this with quite some zeal. I felt I had a lot of experience that I could relate, and in many discussions I felt I had something to say. My on line writing for the class was read by the instructor and gave her a good impression of who I was through my writing. Unfortunately when she started reading my essays, she started to wonder who had written them because they didn’t seem to be written by the same person.

The point she was making, was that my essay writing was very different than my personal writing. She was encouraging me to try and figure out why I was being different, and to try and overcome that difference so that more of “me” was coming out in my essays. I found it to be some pretty interesting feedback and we talked for a while, with me “analyzing” like I tend to do which was probably the wrong thing to do.

I’m sure my essay writing is stilted, because when writing papers outside of just personal expression, I tend to write in a technical fashion. Hmm, seems as though I’ve transferred that to my essay writing, and I need to stop. As I’m writing this, the words are coming freely and without much “pre-thought” to it. This is the kind of thing I need to bring to my essays. So from now on, I need to keep writing in my blog here, and when I do writing for class, I need to try and write in a similar fashion that I do here.

I think it was very valuable feedback, as I continue to work toward my degree and will be doing a lot of writing in the next two years. I’m a bit embarrassed about it all really, and I do need to concentrate on it more in the future, or perhaps I need to -not- think about it so much and just try to “be myself” when I write for class.

I need to get “me” into my essay writing, wish me luck.

Asa Jay

Last Thursday, our instructor for my Research and Writing course, at Whitworth, was absent due to sickness.  She had setup an on line collaboration session so she could still teach class while having us students log in for anywhere we needed.  Knowing that some students might not see the message prior to class, I volunteered to go to the classroom and help facilitate the computer connection for those who might show up.  It turns out that was a good idea, though I had no clue what I was about to get myself into.

I all started out innocently enough as I arrived.  We managed to get the class computer going and hooked up to the lecture session.  All we needed now was for our instructor to join in from home.  She had a hard time connecting.  After a couple of phone calls and working through the login and application problems, she finally gave up.  Since I had kind of taken over facilitation of the group, she asked if I could help by directing a couple of class activities.  This is where I fell apart.

Out of the 11 people, we had seven in class that night, and no instructor.  The on line lecture hall would not allow anyone outside the college to connect, and there was no facility for a speaker-phone.  I was it, so I started out with some simple work-shopping of assigned essays, starting with my own.  That was a pretty good start, as I had tried to keep to our method of claim, examples, counterargument and rebuttal.  For many students, the current essay  seemed difficult, but after reading mine, some of them started to feel much more comfortable.  We moved on to other student essays that we could work-shop and provide valuable feedback.  Later, we needed to get into more of our directed class session.

Our instructor had wanted us to discuss more “counterarguments”, or at least the concept of it.  She also asked if we could try to divide up and try an exercise with one group coming up with an argument, the other group counter arguing, and then the first group rebutting.  This is where I really fell down, and admit I’m not a good English teacher.  I had trouble in really answering some of the questions that came up.  I know that our instructor would have had no difficulty with them, but for me, it was hard to try and get them across.  Even though I might know a bit about the subject and felt comfortable in my own level of knowledge, I just felt naked up there in front of everyone as I tried to help them understand what I knew.

I’ve had no illusions that I might be better than our instructor.  I’ve tried to participate in the class as much as I can given the time I have available.  I’ve also looked to our instructor for guidance in my writing for class.  I know I need to work on my form and my style.  I can’t simply keep letting things fly out of my fingers on to the page without giving it some thought.  She has been a good resource, and this class is something I’ve needed.  I do enjoy trying to help the other students when I think I’ve got a handle on a concept they need help with, but I’m no substitute for the great gal we have in there now.  I hope she gets better, because we really need her.  I’m not ready to take anyones place.

Asa Jay

How does a person take a critical look at who they are? I don’t really know the answer to that, but the class I’m taking is sure causing me to think. As I continue to read the essays for our first week, I find myself being challenged to evaluate who I am, against what has been written.

Each essay is drawn in a different style; one is an interview, another is from a journalist, another written as a background piece on the person writing it. Although the styles have not provided anything new, the content in each has caused me to think more about my own reactions, to what I have read. Each essay has given me insight into other peoples attitudes, backgrounds, and personalities. When compared against my own ideals, it’s caused me to take a more critical look at myself; a more critical look at who I am.

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It’s now Sunday, the third day since my first class.  Wow, what a rush.  I’m reading essays in a book titled “Point Taken, A Brief Thematic Reader” which has so far, been an interesting read.  Each week, our class is to read certain essays an comment on them in our on-line discussion board.  The board is only open to the class, so I am unable to link to it from here.  I’ve been pretty busy making mental notes and writing a bit about everything I’ve been reading.

Something this is causing me to do, is to think more critically of what I’m reading.  I tend to be a slow reader; my wife can finish two or three books in the time it takes me to read one.  I tend to believe I have a higher comprehension level, but I can’t be sure.  What I do know, is that with these essays I’m currently reading, I begin to absorb more of the topic -after- I’ve finished.  In one case, I started making judgments early about the piece, but later, after finishing the essay, I began to see things differently.

In that case, I learned that sometimes, if not all times, I need to finish what I’m reading in order to absorb the entire intent or to find a connection.  In other reading, it’s been easy to finish and then sit back and think about what I read.  With any of the reading I’ve done so far, the need to comment on the writing for class, has caused me to think much deeper into the essays; to analyze them for greater meaning, or to contrast my own life, beliefs or assumptions.

Overall, I think it’s been good for me.  And I’m barely one week into it.

Asa Jay