I promised I’d write occasional updates
about my adventure returning to graduate school at Wayne State University after
all these years. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am returning to finish a
Masters in History that I started about ten years ago. Well, it’s been about two
weeks now and there are things to report.
You may have noticed that I didn’t write
a blog post last week. Frankly the workload is larger than I expected and I
just didn’t have time to write anything. It appears that this blog is going to
drop to one or two posts per week, most likely a post on Wednesday and, with any
luck, a Photo Friday post. The blog will still be photography centered but I
will try to write a monthly blog post about my experiences at school.
Getting
back into the academic world has been both interesting and a bit frightening. The
first thing that happened was that one of the classes that I registered for was
cancelled and I had to find something else to take. Fortunately I found another
course that, it turns out, should be very interesting and valuable. Originally I
planned to take a course in “Colonial America” and a second course in the “Early
American Republic”. The Early Republic course was cancelled but I was able to
replace it with a class in “Women in U.S. Life and Thought.” I’m really
excited about both classes.
The “Women” class is particularly
interesting because it is from a field of study (Women’s History) that barely existed
when I first went off to college in 1971. Certainly if there was such a class
available it would not be near as rich and complete as this one seems to be so
far. The “Colonial” presents a lot of new scholarship and a brand new way of
looking at the colonial world. Far from being stagnant the study of history is
rich and diverse. I especially enjoy being able to study a subject in-depth
instead of in a rushed survey that are common at the undergraduate level.
The one thing that gives me pause is the
need to get back into very serious writing. Between the two courses I have to
write six short papers and two quite extensive ones. All together they will likely total in excess of 10,000
words. It has been a long time since I have written a long and serious
paper and I know these papers are going to take some time, if for no other
reason than that I am out of practice (you can probably tell from this run on
sentence). I’m actually happy that I have the six short ones to do first, since they will
allow me to get back into the real writing mode.
I am really pleased to be on campus
during the day as it allows me access to opportunities for more informal
educational experiences. Many free lectures and presentations are available and
both students and faculty take advantage of them. Last week I had the chance to
attend a mini-seminar presented by Rogers Smith PhD. of the University of Pennsylvania.
We had the opportunity to discuss Dr. Smith’s paper delving into Equality and Differentiated
Citizenship. Being able to sit around a table with fellow students and faculty
from different departments having an intelligent discourse about important issues
is a gratifying experience. I intend to
take advantage of as many of these opportunities as I can.
All in all it has been a pretty good
start. I am thoroughly enjoying myself, and I am feeling pretty good about this
adventure.
© 2009 Tim Marks all rights reserved