One semester closer...

To a degree in English! I sat down the other night and decided to fine tune my degree goals, and I decided to go for a degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing!! I am so excited.

Last night my grades were posted and I got my first 4.0 since starting school. The last time I had a 4.0 was over 10 years ago! So I was really excited that I achieved that GPA in my first collegiate semester since 2002.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous about this semester, but I was mostly excited about my classes. I think that having had some life experience before going back to school, made me realize just how important and valuable education is. And I truly value what I am learning. This semester I studied juvenile delinquency, cultural studies, philosophy, and writing for the media.

I discovered a few things about juvenile delinquency.
#1- The majority of delinquents are nonviolent, unlike what is shown and portrayed in mainstream media.
#2- Both parents are vital to the social success of their children, but mothers appear to have more influence.
#3- Our justice system is failing our youth.

With cultural studies, I was challenged to consider racism and the relationship between race, class, and gender. What I found was that we cannot be a nation of ostriches and stick our heads in the ground and say that racism isn't a problem anymore. Even though I, personally, may not have a problem with the color of people's skin, it doesn't mean that it isn't an issue at large still. And we cannot sweep the issues under the rug.

Writing for the media challenged me to follow grammatical rules more closely and to attribute EVERYTHING. I had to write quickly and efficiently with my first drafts. I feel like I became a better writer after having to write over 20 newspaper articles throughout the course. But I also learned I do not want to be a journalist. Maybe a columnist, but definitely not a journalist.

And finally, philosophy made me get out of my emotional comfort zone. I learned how to take myself emotionally outside of an argument to analyze it. There were a LOT of arguments that I didn't agree with. But I learned how to determine if they were valid or not, and I have learned about the techniques of political strategists to "make people aware". I have also learned how to judge arguments, and how I might be judged when I make a claim and argue its validity. There was one part of this class that I LOVED and it was the setential language and logical proofs. This part was about deductive reasoning.

I loved being in school and I loved learning! I'm happy for a few weeks' break and then starting up my next semester. With any luck, I will raise my GPA further next semester to have a respectable GPA before I transfer to UNM. Higher learning, here I come!