Changing field of study, retired professors, and other issues.

[c12]

I graduated 3 years ago with a degree in health care management. This was from a public (secular) university.

 

Now I want to go to divinity school to get a degree in theology (most likely with a concentration in pastoral studies). Most programs want two academic recommendations. 

 

I'm at a loss for what to do. My professors were all hospital administrators and public health officials who only taught part time, and several of them are retired now. On top of that, I don't think any of them have ever had to write a recommendation for seminary programs before. I'm worried that they'll be completely baffled by my request and not know what to write. Do professors even write recommendations during their retirement? It was a small program and I was one of the top students in my class, so I'm certain that all of my instructors would remember me, but I'm still worried about getting appropriate recommendations from them. But maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. 

 

The other option I can think of is to try to hunt down my old core humanities professors from freshman year (who will not remember me). They might be able to write a more relevant recommendation ...but again, I don't think any of them will remember me at all. 

 

I've also toyed with the idea of working with private tutors in Greek and Hebrew over the next few months and having them write recommendations for me. I'm going to need to learn those languages anyway, so it would be worth the money, and they would know me well enough by March deadlines to be able to write good recommendations. Learning a dead language is a sure sign of academic skill...but I'm not sure if I can get away with using those?

 

Advice?

Edited October 4, 2015 by c12