Loan me a future

Image via WikipediaThis will be a longer post than usual since it's been many weeks since the last one.

The wear and tear of jumping into school - coping with performance anxiety and living in the hyper-kinetic mode with student and personal responsibilities - sapped my time and energy. More accurately, this blog became that "one more thing" that dropped off the edge of my consciousness, or at least, my "To Do" list.

Suffice to say, my education experience has not been joyful. Hate school. Love learning. That's a post for another day, however.

What I want to spill are some thoughts and feelings about the value and cost of education. Last night at class, some students were discussing the loans from their first college go-rounds. Barely into their 30s, they are saddled with $30,000 - $45,000 debts. Like many Americans, they lost their jobs. Yet, here they are - courageously putting in long hours for no pay, hoping that opening textbooks opens the door to a second career, a secure livelihood in the fastest growing industry in America - healthcare.

For these students, and myself, each exam is a significant marker, one parameter to help us measure much more than what's retained from instruction. Last night's exam had most of us riled up. It was hard. Plain hard. No matter how much we studied, the material was overwhelming, perceived as a jumble of confusing details and terminology about cellular processes. Two hours before the exam, I knew my grade. I think we all did. As we awaited our fears to be confirmed, we obsessed. Is this education placing us any closer to jobs? Are our grades good indicators of whether we have the aptitude to work in health care? Can we make it over prerequisite hurdles to the core health sciences curricula? Will that be easier or harder than this? Someone piped up that the biology course is designed to shake out who's serious and who's not, who can hack the material and who can't. Most likely, that is true, whether intentional or not.

One student, echoing the group's apprehension and discouragement, remarked that he was considering going back to work in Newport News. Grumman just secured a $25 million defense contract for nuclear submarine maintenance.



"Every day, I ask, 'Why put myself through this stress'," he said. "Even my kids are better at this science stuff. So why am I wasting time when I could be making money instead of piling up debt and being grumpy?"



Heads nodded.  It's a challenge to focus on faraway goals. Especially, with bills to be paid.

A union wage is enticing. Meanwhile, the shipbuilding industry in China, for one, is growing. Here in the U.S., nursing and most health care industry work can't be exported. What's more, the demand for nurses is expected to continue growing for the next decade. Career choices can be a crap shoot. If your timing is off, the promising, high-demand industry can be in a slump when you graduate or not long afterward. Maybe you catch it just right, maybe you don't. These kids know that.

Thanks to the California State University system's affordable tuition, I never had to take out a student loan. Full-time tuition was around $100 per semester. Cal State tuition has risen to 50 times what I paid 35 years ago. Wages sure haven't increased that much. Despite a valiant attempt to turn an internship into a job (they couldn't get the money to hire me), I graduated jobless with no backup. Having rent and living expenses to bear was hard enough without a loan, which to me, seems like an 800-lb screeching monkey.  I worked two or three jobs at a time for four years until I got a foot in the door somewhere. Can't imagine jobless, burdened with debt and a bleak economic picture. Makes me feel differently at what I saw as tough luck back then.

CSU students have been protesting tuition hikes. I feel for them, yet I think, "What's the difference?" How many will get jobs upon graduation and how many will be consistently gainfully employed? I got my college education at low cost. By age 30, I was laid off. There went my education reimbursement for grad school. I had no debt. By cashing in my 401K, my husband and I were able to buy a home. We struggled for a few years, had a few good years and then struggled again. I expect the economy to run a similar course of ups and downs the rest of my life. So, those kids can protest the tuition now, but what good would a reduction do in the long run? There's a price to be paid for everything and there are no guarantees.

That piece of paper, my college diploma, has unlocked the door to most of the jobs I've held and has, in one way or another, been instrumental to the work I've done. Coming from a working-class family, my mother was proud of me going to college. Nonetheless, I hated, absolutely hated, college the first time around. It's no better this time. That said, one thing I know is that getting the piece of paper is not a waste of time, although it sometimes feels that way.

The median grade on last night's biology exam was a high D. And there I was, sitting squarely on the median. I did some figuring. If the next 2 exams are not as horrid, and my lab book is complete, I can end up with a C, possibly, a B. An instructor from another class (one in which I'm 3 points away from a perfect overall score) encouraged me to look at my education experience realistically and ease up on the perfectionist tendencies. She said is not necessary to get As in all classes.

Sigh.

For the next 7 weeks, can I de-stress and accept less than stellar marks rather than walk away in disappointment?

Myopia and the new global economy

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Back in the 1970s when I was attending college the first time, an old boyfriend, whose foray into the halls of higher education included TIG/MIG welding, sarcastically called me Mr. Peabody, after the 1960s near-sighted cartoon character. Mr. P, in case you don't recall, or weren't born yet, was a myopic, pedantic . . dog.

The implication, of course, was . . "Stop wasting your time on those books and pay attention to ME."  When this infant-in-adult-clothing announced, "Your future is very bleak, Sandy" near my graduation time, I ejected his unsympathetic, non-supportive sass out of the shared rental and my life.

Okay. Maybe I was a little like "Mr. Peabody." Yet rather than near-sighted, by some psychological quirk, I was farsighted. I always knew that lifelong learning was important. So, following a four-year break after earning  my bachelor's degree, I started taking some courses at CSULB. It didn't click. Several years later, I was accepted into the Educational Psychology/Instructional Technology graduate program at USC. One class at a time. Before I could finish what was actually a short, doable MSEd program, I was laid off. The job loss also meant the loss of education reimbursement, which, at the time, seemed to be my only way of getting the degree.

Shortly thereafter, I came to Ohio, taking some time off working to reunite with my mother, who was getting on in age. Here and there, I took a course at Lakeland or Cleveland State to keep up my computer skills. Other than that, I was a full time housewife. At the same time the marriage was ending in the early 2000s, economic change was turning into heavy weather.  My personal life was one major change after another, which left no time for classes, let alone catch my breath. I grabbed hold of a job opportunity and kept at it. When I was taking care of my dying mother, she told me I'd make a good nurse. The social workers, the Hospice nurses and home care staff agreed. What? Me?

It took 5 more years to rise far enough above the surface of personal and professional changes to gulp some air and decide to explore the health care field. Lo and behold, the promise of job growth, flexible working hours and geographic location. That brings me to the present plunge into classes to see if I have the aptitude. Well, here's the truth. I have to work extra hard. The biology class requires about 20 hours a week of study. That's a part-time job, right there, isn't it? Studying this hard is a challenge for which I was totally unprepared,  being accustomed to taking only courses that are easy for me. Performance anxiety hit early and hit hard. Maybe that's a good thing. It propelled me into a discipline of focused learning and engaging help in the form of a tutor. Performance anxiety caused me to miss 3 or 4 questions on the first biology test, but made me realize how to be a better test taker. On Tuesday, the tutor commented, "Of course, this course is going to be difficult - it's hard for everybody because it's different from the way we are used to thinking and looking at things." I had just slowly arrived at the conclusion that I was pushing myself pretty hard. I think I'm adjusting.

I got my eyes examined last week and need a stronger prescription for my astigmatic, myopic eyesight. Fortunately, my farsighted ability to envision the future hasn't really let me down. I quipped to a friend today, "Hey it's like this - I am going to school today for a job I will have in FIVE YEARS."

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It's All the Same . . or Is it?

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Analogy is defined as a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based.

What I recall from learning theory, which I studied at USC in the late 1980s, is that analogy is one of our primary ways of building knowledge. As Seth Godin says in one of his blog entries, ". . realize that analogies are your best friend." 

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During Biology classes, it doesn't take much for my mind to be off and riffing on all the analogies between organic molecules, cells and . . the world we live in. It's been awhile since I had the time to contemplate things like that. My mind was a virtual July 4th of synapses pondering these things when I was younger.

Most entertaining are those analogies drawn from what can be seen with the unaided eye because it's fun to look beyond mere appearances. Cell structure and functioning is akin to manufacturing - that's a popular analogy for the classroom. Social and organizational structures, interpersonal dynamics, buildings, cars, boats, planes - our inventions and the sense we make of the world around us - also are analogous to the apparently orderly scheme of things. But what if our grasp of appearances, what if that conceptual framework was determined to be  . . . elementary? If the basis of our ordinary concepts were essentially all wrong, or even mostly wrong, think how that would affect . . everything.

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Test of time

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First Biology test last night. Thankfully, a passing score.

What I learned:  Read the questions even more carefully. Sometimes the distractor is in the question. Follow hunches. If it feels wrong, it probably IS wrong. Missing four easy questions knocked me into a low B.

Considering my anxiety level, and the fact that I didn't feel solid with certain concepts, the score was good enough.

Good enough to show I'm actually learning something. Good enough to reveal where I need to spend more time. The half-hour spent with the tutor three hours before the test was definitely time well spent. After that, I figured there was no sense frantically paging through notes. Playing piano briefly two hours before the test helped the brain waves. I figured, either I know the material, or I don't.


The temperature was maybe 6 degrees last night. At least, the class is held at a place where parking is steps from the building. Back home, spent five hours completing the Medical Terminology assignment due tonight. Up until 3 a.m. The book I'm reading for pleasure, "When the Body Says No," by Gabor Mate, is due at the public library today. Inter-library loan so I can't renew. DRAT.

Sunshine yesterday and today. What more can I say?

Is it all just talk?

Image by /\ltus via Flickr

Communications museum

Tonight's speaker talked about the importance of communication, a key ability for working in the healthcare field. I left with a good feeling that the verbal and written skills I've honed over the years could be especially valuable in a new career that isn't just about communication.

Though medical writing has emerged more than once in my mind as a direction to explore, two considerations - working with people and not spending the entire day at a computer - are important to me.

Lately, I have been thinking that whatever next step I take, it's got to be into something I truly enjoy. Granted, I would enjoy it more if it pays really well. But the main thing is to quit doing work that is disagreeable on some level or another. Though I've been complaining like mad for the past week, today I began to feel the investment of time and money in these courses will have a positive return.
Image by seiuhealthcare775nw via Flickr
I'm just scratching the surface of career exploration. I've never been blessed with a passion for any one interest. I've also been pressed to find work, any work, most of my life. Tonight's speaker remarked that if we students are just going into healthcare because of the high demand and prospect of making good money, and it really doesn't suit our personalities, we are in for misery. I agree. But it's like anything - you don't really know what it's like until you are in it.

So, I keep talking to people in the healthcare field. Some are there because they once had passion (and now don't). Some are there because they truly love it. Others are making a paycheck. As I tap them for personal experiences, few want to be discouraging. I have to listen between the words. Ah. Communication. There it is. Again. This journey isn't just about finding a new career. It's about acknowledging who I am, honoring my values. For years, I contorted myself to fit into companies whose products, services, or cultures I found repulsive. Do I really want to do that again? I want to get beyond "the paycheck" to believing that, despite an uncertain economy, there will be something "just right" and if it pay well, great. It's not all just talk. It's a lot of thinking, too.

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Candlemas Day

Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr
In other areas of the country, the blizzard of 2011 is taking its toll. With the exception of Canton and parts of Cleveland, Northeast Ohio has escaped the predicted weather drama. So far.
 
The campus has been closed for the past two days. Not that I spent every hour of each day studying, but the gain of additional study time has been put to some use. It's also helped the input to settle a little further into my head.

Of the one quiz and two exams slated for this week, it's one down, two to go. The Health Sciences Careers class quiz was no problem. A hundred percent, there. Tomorrow night, given classes resume, there's the Biology test. On a scale of one to ten, my confidence level is currently at six. Need more work, there. The Medical Terminology test, which was to have been given tonight, can be taken at the campus testing center over the next two days. Having done the practice tests on the DVD and closing in on one-hundred percent there, my confidence level is up.

Hard to believe this is only the third week of class. It seems longer than that. I don't even want to think how many more weeks there are to go. I'd rather contemplate an early spring, as unscientific as prediction by groundhog may be. Punxsutawny Phil did NOT see his shadow today. 

Image via Wikipedia

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Watch (learning) curves

Image by Mira (on the wall) via FlickrI signed up for a tutor for the biology class. When I read the same paragraph in the textbook repeatedly, the time has come.

The tutoring starts next week. Costs me nothing - it's a service of the college. I love free stuff.


Reaching out for a helping hand is not something I take lightly. In order to do that, I have to have exhausted my own resources and admit something is not clicking.




Biology lab was fun tonight. The four of us were really "on" and we finished quickly. Nice when things go smoothly and there's camaraderie.


Long day. Tired.

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