Originally posted Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005 9:23 pm
On furthering my edumacation
Years ago, when I was still starving young secretary with black suit jacket and gold name tag, temping my way around town, I looked into online education. The pickings were slim to none, and I was quite dissatisfied with what was available.
I tried taking classes at the local community college, but my itinerant work style didn’t work well with a solid school schedule. But, if I’d stuck with it, I might be close to graduating with a degree in a year or so. But that further assumes I’d find something that I thought I could stick with and use to my advantage over working those hours.
Once I discarded the name tag and climbed the ranks to Technical Writer, I banished serious thoughts of education to the furthest reaches of my pocket book. Even if I could find something I wanted to study or make time in my schedule for, I still needed to pay for it. Precious few local education outlets provided any coursework or academic track that I could justify my employer paying for.
But that has changed. Online and Extended Education have improved dramatically in the past few years while I was busy getting along at work and starting my family. I recently took a course, though I made the mistake of taking it on during busy time and did not complete it (living without phone or internet for a month tends to make course-work difficult, at best) in time to receive credit or reimbursement. It was a good class, and I’d like a chance to complete it. When things settle down a bit, I’ll take it again.
As slow time is starting to head my way, I took some time to browse the course offerings, both for my professional education, and for something fun, for me. The online school had language offerings, so I followed through to read the summary:
Languages
Prepare for your next vacation or open up new career opportunities by learning conversational Spanish, French, Braille, or English.
Conversational Braille: while it sounds intriguing, probably isn’t what I think it is.