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Wordsmith

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About Wordsmith

  • Birthday 01/25/1977

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  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    Heartland
  • Application Season
    2015 Spring
  • Program
    Counselling Psychology

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  1. I'm married, and my choice in grad program was based around where we live. It was more a "Where can I do X program in the area," decision.
  2. As funny as it sounds, when I say balance and time management, I'm not really worried about buckling down and getting my stuff done - that's never really been an issue for me. . My concern is more the opposite. In the past as a student, immersing myself completely and totally in my studies to the exclusion of everything else was my "normal." When I was teaching, pretty much the same rules applied...I lived and breathed it, devoted every spare moment to it whether nominally "off the clock" or not. When I was earning my bachelor's, and in my career, this worked...I was on my own, it was just me, and I wasn't shortchanging anybody or anything buy focusing on my studies and/or my teaching to the exclusion of all else. My issue is that I'm in a different place in life, now. I have a spouse, an extended family, my time is no longer just my own, and I want to get the balance right. This is new ground for me. I'm not the person who's going to have a hard time with the school work load...if I had to predict, I'd say I'm the person whose challenge is going to be making sufficient time for the rest of life outside of my schooling. I tend to get a little/a lot sucked in.
  3. Spouse is Navy and a war veteran (although he has no problem with using first names within appropriate contexts, possibly due to being somebody who had years of professional civilian experience prior to enlisting). I definitely agree that the military paradigm as I have observed it from a spousal standpoint does not really fit in an academic setting.
  4. Not sure how I feel about my graduate school yet, as I'm beginning this week, but my interactions up through the admissions process have been positive. I felt pretty personally emotionally invested in my undergrad as a community, and took great care in selecting the perfect, nurturing community with an atmosphere I really wanted to live in for four years, etc., and was very much invested in on-campus life and all that that entails. My graduate school is simply the school closest to me that had the program most in line with my professional needs...more of a "this fits the bill" situation than "This is where I always dreamed of going!" one. My approach is more clinical for my master's than it was for my bachelor's. At 18, I was looking at college choice as a major factor in lifestyle, because it was. At 37, my graduate program is, really, more professional development than looking for that ultimate place to feed my soul. That said, I did do my due diligence to ensure that I was picking a school that was not only convenient to where I was located, but one with an atmosphere that seems amenable to me and has a philosophy of education that appeals to me. Not just looking at it as work training, but I do have to admit that my priorities are different this time around.
  5. I actually did move to Great Lakes with my husband four months before our wedding...wasn't eligible for a dependent ID, couldn't get on base, into the commissary or NEX unaccompanied, and we obviously didn't get dependent BAH those four months, but at least was able to live in housing. I did wait until those orders were over to start grad school, though, because we didn't know how long we would be there, and I didn't want to start a program and have to transfer. Good thing, as they didn't get renewed for anybody for longer than a year. We are back on reserve status, now, which at least means staying put for a couple of years, and more than likely no deployments.
  6. Ah, planning weddings within military constraints. We had about five months from engagement to ceremony, as well!
  7. If he did A-school at Great Lakes after boot camp, he may have crossed paths with my husband, who just finished a military training instructor billet there! Bless the Post-911 GI Bill, without it, I wouldn't likely BE an "older graduate student!"
  8. Another Counselling Psychology person, here, just about to start my first semester. I'm really interested in this thread, since I'm starting at 37 and haven't been a FT student since 1999. I'm not so much anxious about the rapport/relating to my cohort/social aspect, since I've been working for years primarily with people who are in the age range of the typical person who goes directly into grad school from undergrad. I've got that down, at least to my own level of comfort. I'm confident I can do the work. If I'm anxious about anything, it's about mentally getting back into "student" mindset, after so many years out of academia (at least from a student standpoint, I'm switching into counselling from a teaching career). Balance and time management has always been my biggest hurdle, both in school and professionally...I tend to immerse myself and not come up for air, and my life balance suffers. I'm hoping to improve at that this time around and hit a good balance. I have a spouse to help take on part of the household load, which I didn't have during undergrad, and although he is career military and his schedule can vary due to his work, we make a great team. We have no kids at this point, and I'm thankful that I am able to go to school FT without worrying about work. Were I committed to my former work hours, none of this would be possible, so I'm very thankful I'm able to focus just on school at this point in my life...I know many people don't have that luxury. So I guess I'm mostly concerned about tip for balancing school around life...I'll be honest, years ago when I was in undergrad, I just plain DIDN'T. I lived and breathed school, and school alone (and I could, at that point, I had no other real responsibilities). Since I struggled then, I'm hoping to do better.
  9. Thanks, NavyMom. Navy wife, here.
  10. Hello, everyone! Excited to find a forum/thread that addresses my situation. I'm about to start my graduate program, an M.S. in counselling psych, and have 80% excitement and 20% nerves/trepidation. I'm 37, and received my bachelor's degree in 1999. Since then, my only coursework has been in the form of training for work/continuing ed type stuff, or just classes for fun, not hardcore academic work. I've always been a strong student, but I still have some anxiety about getting back into the swing of things. I've been a teacher, myself, so I'm not head-in-the-sand about how much technology has changed elements of education...but I've been more on the educator end of that than the student end. A little anxious about that, but I think it'll be fine. I feel like I've got a lot of advantages as a person starting graduate school in my upper thirties, in that I'm not a parent, and am able to attend full-time without working, so I'll have less to juggle than many at this stage of life. However, I'm also a newlywed (relatively, my husband and I celebrate one year at the end of this month), and starting a family if possible is on our list. This is a bridge that will be crossed when we get to it, however. Mostly, I'm just nervous about getting back into student mode. I've been in the working world from age 23-37, so it will be a switch. But as a person who always treated schooling like it WAS a job, I'm hoping the transition will be easier than I might think. I'm less worried about relating to younger peers, because I've spent a lot of time in the past seven or eight years working with that cohort, and manage to relate fine.
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