“A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.”
– Max von Sydow
So I finally managed not only to finish my first term, but also to catch up on all the stuff in my life that got put on the back burner waiting for me to reach that point. And now classes start again for my second term next week. So this is my week to breathe! Because of A.T. Still University's unusual schedule, I'm off at the same time that most people on a more traditional semester system are in the middle of their first term of the year. Since I work for a university, that means I'm taking a break while watching students busily running around. Ah, but don't worry little students, the tables will turn soon enough....
But as long as I'm taking a break, I'll go ahead and look back on the part of the trail I've already covered. This first term I took two courses. One was the first of two courses on Finance in Higher Education, which I really enjoyed, so much so that I'm glad there will be another one next year. The other was a Research course in which I put together the problem statement for my overall research project, its subproblems, a short review of the literature, and an initial draft of my research proposal. As I've mentioned, I also recruited my two external reviewers for my committee, and was lucky to find high quality people willing to take me on.
One thing I haven't yet said is that I finally have a dissertation chair: Patricia Sexton. Dr. Sexton has an impressive array of qualifications to be my dissertation chair, including that she has a doctorate in health education of her own, she's Director of Research at the School of Health Management, and she's an instructor of nutrition courses for ATSU's medical school. This last one is particularly exciting, as I knew that my chair would have an Education background, but I wasn't expecting that she'd also be able to point me in the right direction when it comes to being a subject matter expert. So I'm pretty happy with the university for assigning her to me. And with her, my committee is complete.
I should also report on my attempt to get out of buying textbooks by checking them out of the library. This actually more or less worked, and where it didn't work well it was mainly through my own foolishness – e.g., not checking the edition number before requesting the book. I did run into a situation where a book I was using was recalled, which means I had no choice but to return it or pay a very steep daily fine. Fortunately this was late enough in the term that returning it wasn't a big problem. This was the book for Finance, which had an overall project rather than a final exam, so I was able to part with the book a little before the end without too much ado. I suppose the bottom line is that I plan to use this same tactic again; one of my upcoming courses requires a textbook and I have just ordered it through the library consortium. It wasn't available used any more cheaply than new, so I'll save forty more dollars this way.
Finally, I was wrong about something important. I tried to set up a weekly schedule that included time on Friday nights to watch my favorite show on TV. That ended up not happening the way I'd intended, partly from continuing struggling against my arch-nemesis of procrastination, and I'm too far behind in the show to pick it back up now. No problem; I'll marathon it once it comes out on DVD, or at least during the first semester break that happens afterward!
Anyway, so now I've completed the first of eight semesters. I'm looking at that as a healthy 12.5%, as the glass being one eighth full. Next up will be a follow up Q & A on the past semester.