thankfulness
You know, with all this job-hunting and forward thinking, I’ve sort of forgotten how great it’s been to go to grad school.
As a rule, I’m a big fan of education: I love being a student, I love learning, I love the environment a school gives. But, even beyond that, for me, going back to school for a master’s was particularly extraordinary because I had gone to an unaccredited college for undergrad.
If you’re not familiar with all the terminology and red tape of accreditation, here’s a nutshell version: you need it if you want your degree to always be recognized. Many, many schools will not honor a degree from an unaccredited school (side note: why I went to the unaccredited school is another story–one to be shared later).
When I’d started thinking about another degree, back in 2004/05, I looked for a good program that I thought would accept my credentials. I applied to a school in Virginia–religious like my undergrad was–and got accepted.
But later I learned the VA school didn’t offer the highest academics, and it too lacked the reputation to get me jumpstarted career-wise. Back to the drawing board. I searched online for any college that would offer a writing-based master’s degree, in the Chicago area. One stood out to me, and I applied.
Amazingly, still surprising to me to this day, I got in. No one ever questioned my background, and I’ve been in the top percentage of every class I’ve taken.
One of my old classmates contacted me today; she’s planning to attend that school in VA. She wondered how I managed to get past the accreditation issues with my current school. I told her God worked it out, and He did.
Filed under grad school | Comment (0)magazine writing
For one of my classes last quarter, I had to create three magazine articles that I would actually submit for publication. My prof showed us the best ways to query and how to market writing to specific magazines, and his practical advice proved helpful.
I sold the first piece quickly, though I still haven’t been paid for it: this seems to be common in freelance magazine writing–editors are busy and hard to reach. It will appear in a June issue, my editor said in her one voicemail message.
I sold the second today, to a local newspaper. They will pay me $50 at the end of the month. I’m glad to have sold the article, especially because it benefits the shop I profiled, and they were very helpful there. But I’m disappointed too–the piece focuses on a national trend, and I queried at least three larger publications that never responded. A local paper’s OK, but smaller than I’d aimed at. I guess it’s always good to have backup options.
Filed under grad school, writing | Comment (0)
