Sunday, September 17, 2006

Master’s degree

When I started my degree program for my master’s degree on my birthday in November 2004, I had a lot of expectations of what I would find in the program. I hoped to find new understandings about education, teaching, and myself. I knew that it would be a difficult program especially with a small child in tow. As the program has progressed over the last 22.5 months, I have come to many of those new understandings about myself and my career. I have also come to understand more about my life as a father to not only my first son, now 4.5 years old, but my second son, born only 5 months ago. With the end of my Master’s degree completion career nearing, I hope to keep learning more about all of the parts of my life.
I suggest a University of Phoenix education to everyone I talk to. I understand how the program is most useful to people who are like me and do well in self-motivated situations. I know that certain friends and family would flounder in an online program as they would find it difficult to find the motivation to accomplish their assigned tasks. Those people usually find success in more structured and traditional classes. I have found much more success in this program than I believe I would have in a traditional class schedule. Mainly, I have found success in the communication filtered by a computer. This medium allows people like me to filter our ideas before they come blurting out.
I have learned quite a bit about the world through this degree program. I have learned about the nation’s teachers, schools, and districts. We are not that much different regardless of our geographic location. The advent of Internet communication like this degree program has also allowed people of different races, creeds, and colors to interact without the barriers to communication that those differences sometimes create.
The problems and challenges that we face in our daily lives are not specific to us. Every human on the planet faces the same challenges at some point. We are not alone, and the ability to share that information with others is the biggest benefit I have found in my two year exploration of life, school, and education.